One significant challenge after another.
That's what the process of getting my website where I want it has been. And as you can see, I'm nowhere near close.
For about a year I stopped blogging because my hosting provided kept blocking my IP address as part of preventing brute force attacks - I guess that's where robots attack my site. In addition, I wasn't very happy with the layout of my site, but couldn't find a WordPress them I liked.
I finally decided to switch hosting providers so I could blog again and manage my own site. At the same time I stubbled onto a theme I liked. I bought the theme, customized my website, starting blogging, and was getting ready to make the switch.
Then the war against me getting a good site up and running began.
First, I wasn't able to make a backup of my website through the plugin I had installed. No biggie, I'll just use another one. So I installed it and tried to use it. No luck.
What did happen, though, was my site was hacked and the hack used code in that new plugin to prevent me from logging into my site. The hosting provider was somewhat helpful in getting the issue resolved, but I still had to chase down the issue with them and the plugin maker, costing me time and effort. Once that issue was resolved, however, the hack used another plugin to prevent me from logging in.
Once we disabled all plugins I was able to log in.
Next, I needed login and FTP credentials from my friend who was the primary account holder with the existing hosting provider. Since he's busy and has a few other things going on, it took a little time. Plus, I didn't give him the right info in the first place to give me all that I needed.
Eventually, I got the right credentials.
Stacey, at GoDaddy, the new hosting provider, was so helpful in answering my questions a week earlier when I called about switching, that I wanted to give her the credit for the sale. We had trouble connecting on the day I was ready to make the switch, so I had to wait a day later than I wanted to to get going.
Not a big deal, but one more setback.
When we got the hosting set up and I was able to make a copy of my database, I used the credentials necessary to migrate my website. What should have been a simple one click migration was not. Once again, it took time and effort to figure out what was wrong and that it wasn't going to work. It took three calls to figure out it wasn't going to work.
Note the frustration mounting...
That wasn't all. When we tried to migrate through the alternate, longer way, the database didn't transfer correctly, the WordPress contents folder didn't transfer correctly, and the website theme didn't transfer correctly.
Ugh.
GoDaddy support looked into it, had me try the migration again and we got a temporary site up and running. One problem - it was only functioning at about 40% of the way it should, since the theme still wasn't working.
I emailed the theme provider to get some insight and they gave me an idea of what to look into for the fix. When they responded, I was fortunately (unfortunately?) heading out on vacation, so I forwarded that email to Stacey asking her to forward it on to technical support so they could work on it while I was away. That didn't work out so well.
When I got back from vacation I called GoDaddy support to reengage the process. You can imagine, given the issues, how excited I was to do that. My energy to deal with this, though fresh back from vacation, was waning.
Through some additional phone calls and emails, it became clear that GoDaddy did what they could and the theme provider gave as much support as they were going to and my best option was to wipe the existing content and start over.
No biggie. I had only spent 40 hours or more getting my site to a point where I felt comfortable with it before migrating...
When I wiped and started over, there were still problems!!!
I emailed the theme provider and called GoDaddy, and luckily GoDaddy support was able to resolve it.
Now I'm rebuilding the site and have to figure out how to import all of the blogs from the last 4 years.
No luck yet.
At this point, however, I'm wondering what the message is.
Should I keep trying to overcome or change course? Is the reward going to be all the greater since the struggle was hard or am I wasting my time?
At the same time, I'm having difficulty getting in touch with Olympians to interview for my next book AND a new business line I'm launching is being held up by some things. In similar circumstances, some of the millionaires I interviewed pressed through while some changed course. One of the questions I asked them during the interviews was how to know when to keep going and when to do something different.
There was no clear answer.
I think it comes down to one of the main points I learned from them and was reinforced by my wonderful friend and colleague, Juliann Wiese as she and I talked yesterday. She said, "I trust that whatever the right answer is, you'll make it."
I trust that, too. If I don't smash my computer first...