2021 Start It Bad

*This was supposed to be published a few days after New Year, but it was prolonged because of the nature of this article. Keep reading, and you will understand*

Unfortunately, 2021 started worst than 2020 ended. On the first day of the new year, I woke up just to find my entire site is taken down (somehow), and I can't even log in to my back end dashboard. Control panel for my sites showing no WordPress has been installed. You can only imagine the frustration and thoughts that were going through my head...

Luckily, our support team at Wealthy Affiliate manage to fix it very fast (BIG thanks to them once more).

First down, let's go!

"Alright, I am back in business," - I think to myself and continue to work on my project. I was actually starting with the process of creating a membership for this site. Naturally, I am looking for free solutions before paying for premium ones.

The first plugin that I used to make a membership was good rated (4,5 stars) but had a bug of not creating proper roles for registering people. And I couldn't edit the roles because I need to had a paid version for this plugin.

"Well, not actually smart investment" - again, thought run through my mind. It's time to test a new well-rated plugin. After watching a tutorial, I managed to set the plugin and make it work. I test it, had some minor fix issues during the process. BUT IT WORKED!

I was so happy; just one last check before I conclude it, I have to see how the login works.

Shock! "Surely I did something wrong". Ok, I went a step back, tried again: the same result. I went to members in my dashboard; everything is how it is supposed to be. I don't understand....

I went and made another account to test it, register, logout... Same thing. My happiness was short-timed. I hoped that WA support could handle it. Unfortunately, they said it's the plugin problem since the default page for logging in to my dashboard work.

Time for help

Back to square one. I lost several days of looking for a plugin, setting it, testing it, and getting nowhere. Very frustrating. So I turned to my good and dear friend Laura, here in WA, who is much more experienced than me, asking for her help, or at least her point of view.

She offered valuable information and guidance, along with a fair amount of solutions. Thanks to her, I managed and set membership site, along with content restriction, all that for free, no premium required.

There were still many obstacles on the way regarding layout, payment, integration, etc. (some of them are still active), and I am not going to bug you with details about them. By the end of January, everything should be set and ready.

I set my own path

I am not superstitious, I never was. I believe we make our own path and choose the outcome of our life based on our decisions.

At one point of this year, my entire view of life was shaken. I really thought that I am jinxed somehow for this year and that shit had hit the fan. And the best part, the year has just started.

But, I am not a quitter! I found Wealthy Affiliate that has helped me make all of this come true. I won't accept failure so easily, and I refuse to.

Yes, my other sites have stopped for now because I devoted so much time to this project. Could I do it faster? Perhaps, but even with the paid solution, I could have run into the same or similar problems, so it's not guaranteed.

This will also be settled, and I will get back to my other projects. I plan to run it mostly on autopilot so that the membership won't ask for a lot of time from me.

What did I learn

I believe I should take a lesson from each situation out of my life. That is how I evolve, that is how I learn. If I don't learn anything, that what is the point in overcoming obstacles? Just to fix something? Why only that when you could gain much more.

So the lessons that I learned were:

1. Do a backup of your site, always. No matter the WA does it, it's my obligation to do so!
2. Test everything several times if needed.
3. Ask for help. It's not a shame to fall and ask for help; it's a shame to fall and stay down.
4. Look for a second opinion, ALLWAYS!
5. The third opinion also, if possible.
6. Take a step back when you feel overwhelming.

I hope your 2021 started well, or at least better than mine.

What are the problems that you are facing in building your online business? How do you manage your problems?