This week I thought I would talk about some of the obstacles I have encountered over the last couple of weeks with the starting of this blog. Initially, I thought that starting a blog would be a great idea. To be honest, this hasn’t changed. However, with just two weeks in, the roller coaster I have been on is a little crazy. One of my previous posts looked at the mental ups and downs I have had. Today’s instalment is all about trying something new, persistent problems and perseverance.
Thought my life, have often one of those people who are like, ‘how hard can it be?’. Website design and creation I have found out, is hard. I am a member of the generation who can remember a time before computers were in every house, a time before mobile phones were common and before google. However, I am also the generation that has always had access to computers at school. The year I started school my class was in the newspaper because we got a computer in our classroom. Because I have always had some basic access to computers, I can navigate one fairly well, even without being shown. I find I am often able to figure out software with some trial an error and wrap my head around it fairly quickly. Well, designing a website, even with the assistance of AI is a tough gig! The day I decided I was going to start the blog, I thought it may take be an hour or so to get the website up and running. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just something simple to start with. It took me all day to do. Never did I realise it would take so long and challenge me in so many ways. It was not just layout that was challenging and trying to take things from my head and put them into actuality (we will not speak of having to decide on colours). The biggest challenge I faced was learning new software. It wasn’t just the building of the website either. It was learning how to link a Facebook page and an instagram page (fb - discovering Freedom and insta @discoveringfreedomblog). Currently FB is updated immediately but I have to create a separate instagram post. The most frustrating part was I didn’t actually want a fb or an insta page yet. I had tried them in the past with my crafting and I had a bookstagram. I found the social media platform to be very challenging, not just with the calibre of posts to actually make a mark but the time intensiveness and pressure to post regularly and keep posts coming. The reason they now exist as part of this blog is because doing so is part of the initial set up. The whole process hurt my head. It took so much brainpower to learn and the amount of mistakes I made was astronomical. If you are here reading this at time it is posted, anticipate more possibly changes. Already, I have changed the way the website looks because I accidentally deleted a section. I have no idea how I did it. It was there and then it was not.
Another obstacle that I am working on is learning editing software. I started using GIMP because I am not sure if I want to invest in a Lightroom subscription just yet. I am starting to get better at this however I decided I wanted to start using RAW images. I have been doing research into photography and it is said it is good to shoot in jpeg and raw. I figured that out on my camera and when to edit some photos and GIMP does do raw images. I had to download darktable to edit raw. That was another day taken up. All I can say is I am so lucky my husband has an IT background because I think this one would have been the end of me. Thankfully, I have finally got it sorted and now I am learning yet another piece of software. I have full intentions I spending a lot of time researching all of the new software I am using through Youtube as well as other mediums. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
As I sit here reflecting on the challenges I have faced with starting this blog, what is standing out the most for me is not only my perseverance (thank you meds) but also how much this journey and sharing it with you is important to me. The feeling I am get when I overcome a challenge, accomplish a task or make everything come together and it all work properly gives me as so rewarding. There are only a handful of times in my life where I have had similar feelings. The main one that stands out is completing my degree. The strongest indicator that this is something I should continue to do is the fact that I cannot stop thinking about things I want to do. I am constantly thinking about the different topics I want to write about, my experiences that I can share and it has motivated me to stop and be more aware and mindful in my everyday life. I am thoroughly enjoying this process. When I am working on the blog, I enter a flow state of mind and I become thoroughly immersed in it, losing all track of time. Flow states have been linked to healthy aging, creativity and as Psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi who first going the ten stated is “the secret to happiness”. It is because of the joy that this blog is bringing me and the ways it is enriching my life, I will continue irrelevant of how many readers I have. It is my wish that more people access this blog and we can build a community as that would increase my joy exponentially but that is only part of it.
Please leave a comment about any of the activities you love that have been challenging but you find a state of flow.
If you would like to read more about how medication has helped me please see my post titled How ADHD medication improved my focus and kick started my blogging journey. Or If you would like to read about the emotional challenges of starting a blog, see the post titled Fighting the Imposter Syndrome.
Hope you all have an amazing week xx
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