<Yawn><stretch><yawn 37 more times> why hello there once again!
So glad to see you on my site. I trust your morning has treated you with an orchard full of peaches? Me, well, I found some super posts regarding recommended bloggers to follow, and spent the past 384 hours patiently adding them to my feedreader. Found some grand goodies online, I'll tell you that (and will be sharing that too at a later time).
But I digress. 🙂
Awhile back, I wrote the tremendously soul-stirring post:
COMMUNITIES Buy Products; Mindless Advertising does NOT – Part 3 of Inceptions Deceptions
It's part of my own-going series in which I entertain you with the rather bizarre otherworldly turn of events that is leading up to my new reinvention. And I had closed with:
And here's something neat – putting together the backend of that community….wow, was that an adventure in enjoyable gnawing off the enamel of my coffee cup! You see, there's a simple reason why – it was because I needed to do some hard-core tweaking of site…..stuff I had never ever done before.
Which was, quite simply, ego-gratifying beyond words. And I promised I'd tell you how I did it.
No, wait, I'm NOT going to tell you how I coded – that would be almost as exciting as describing the National Olympics of Faucets Leaking….drip by mind-numbingly boring drip.
Instead, I'm going to tell you how I gave myself permission to actually (gasp!) TOUCH the code with my own hot little hands, well, my own keyboard, okay, I manually edited the code, alright?
Now stop right there!!
Chances are, unless you're a geek like me, you view editing code with the same heart-warming delight as you might internalize while approaching an ornery rattlesnake with a free DeFanging Coupon in your hands.
Not to fear!
Would you believe that if you give yourself permission to learn….you can begin making the craved minor tweaks for your site…yourself?
Don't believe me? I certainly don't blame you if you're a bit leery with the above notion!
But would you believe…it's so easy (once you've given yourself permission to learn and YES by golly I'm going to keep harping on that phrase) that even a middle-schooler can do it?
Witness:
Middleschooler Hacks Personal WordPress Theme, Makes Money Online
Yep, that was my daughter that was, and yep, she internalized it to the point that even this morning (this very morning!) when I dropped her off to school, she said (and I quote):
"Hey Mom! Look at that license plate! It says RSS! Get it? RSS? RSS!"
You can definitely tell who her mother is, eh? 🙂
But let me now return to the topic at hand.
You see, part of reinventing oneself involves giving yourself permission to explore Brave New Worlds.
Worlds like….changing your site look and feel..by yourself.
And that requires words like (insert dramatic music here!)…
- SWELL!
and
- SO'S YOUR OLD MAN!
(What's that? You'd like a reference for the obscure goodness of the above? Nobody does it better than the original (especially at 3:53)!)
Ah, memories……
Where was I?
Oh yes! Confronting the big bad wolf of your fears!
So many times, we build up in our minds just how
- Horrible
- Icky
- Mind-numbing
(Wait, that's not enough words. Let me check Thesaurus.com🙂
- abhorrent, abominable, appalling, awful, beastly, cruel, detestable, disagreeable, disgusting, dreadful, eerie, execrable, fairy, fearful, frightful, ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrid, loathsome, lousy, lurid, mean, nasty, obnoxious, offensive, repellent, repulsive, revolting, scandalous, scary, shameful, shocking, sickie, terrible, terrifying, ungodly, unholy, unkind
it would be to even attempt…that which scares US.
I can certainly relate – up until perhaps 2 months ago, I abhorred writing copy (you can see my gloriously award-winning whines over at Just Freakin' Do IT! Btw, reading it now just makes me giggle). Amazing how that 2 month mark kinda sorta resonates with the time I decided to reinvent meself, eh?
Anywhos, I finally gave myself permission to tell myself,
"HEY! IDJUT! YEAH, YOU! The one with the mooses and the coffee cups! Did it ever occur to you that you're a DIFFERENT person than you were then? Why not approach copywriting with an (get this!) OPEN MIND?"
As you can tell, I have long and distinguished discussions with myself. Very long. Sometimes hours long. But hey, the outcome generally is fantastic. 🙂
So I took a deep breath, researched all I could find about writing copy, and dove into it earlobes first.
And guess what!
My fears…really WERE just Lassie having a Halloween joke at my expense! There was no Big Bad Wolf…there was only the shadows of my personal fears of failing.
It's comforting never to try, you know…because if you don't try, you don't fail.
But! Give yourself permission TO soar over the universe, and more often than not…you'll see your fears were simply…unfounded.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
Do you wish you could learn the basics of modifying your WordPress theme?
If so, allow me to point you to:
- Lissa Explains HTML
- Customizing Your Sidebar
- 10 WAYS TO CUSTOMIZE AND PERSONALIZE YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG
- PHP Tutorial for WordPress Users
Honestly…when you let yourself explore how your own WordPress theme really words from a php and CSS view, you can customize your site so it stands out, head and shoulders, from the rest of the thundering herd.
It sure helped me when I started customizing my own membership site, 2 months ago! And will help you too…you simply cannot imagine.
Once I got my customizations down, it was time to tackle the next step of my reinvention. And that involved….no, wait.
It involved several things actually….I'll let the suspense build until the next installment comes out.
Hope you have a simply outstanding day!
Barbara Ling
Get Started Here
You’ll love what you learn… Promise!