My 30 Day Challenge – Keeping The Same Theme Plus a Few Others Goals
You don’t have to tell me, I already know… I am a strange person. When I have friends who jump on chat and tell me that they really liked the theme I had on my blog at 12 noon and then the other one at 5:00 pm but didn’t like the last one they saw at 7:00 pm, to me I guess that may be an indicator that I have WordPress Theme Addiction. Trust me folks, this is much worse than being addicted to crack! Although, I have never had issues with crack, the symptoms I hear can be kinda bad. With that said, I am going to break myself from this addiction and set myself FREE! lol
So anyway, WYSIWYG. Don’t tell me that you love the new theme, don’t tell me that you hate it. We are all just going to be quiet about it. I am challenging myself to NOT change my theme for 30 days. So once again, what you see is what you get. I hope you like it, but it doesn’t really matter because we ALL are stuck with it. Of course, if you don’t like it, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed. (which by the way is another goal in my 30 day challenge, we’ll talk about that in a minute)
It amazes me how fickle I am. Two nights I had buttons on my header and overall my theme looked like a freaking Halloween nightmare. Yet, I was pleased with the look. I woke up yesterday morning *late afternoon and I wanted to drop bricks on my head. “What were you thinking???” was the first thought that came to mind.
It was funny too, because last night when I was fixing my botched Halloween Theme nightmare job, I realized that in many ways things were much different when I wasn’t making money online. I wasn’t changing my theme (as often I should say) like I do currently because I kept myself pretty darn busy building and working on my niche blogs. Today, it’s a much different story. I can go weeks without having to do any actual work and I still make money.
Granted, when I do work, I am working towards continuing to grow my earnings. The more I work, the more I make. The less I work the more my earnings stay the same. So when you have that kind of pattern with income, it’s easy to get comfortable and satisfied with things as long as you make enough to live comfortably. With that said, my survival mode of motivation no longer drives me to work hard. This usually results in me branching off and doing odd things, such as using my personal blog as a big ass digital coloring book.
Goal #1 is to NOT change my theme for 30 days!
Now, let’s talk about goal #2, which this one should be much easier than the first. Last month I updated my FeedBurner address and did the 30 day 301 redirect to my new FeedBurner address. I have wanted to make this change for a long time, but dreaded doing so because deep down I knew that I would lose a lot of subscribers regardless of any proactive measures I could take. Sure enough, a month after I finally decided to change my FeedBurner address to my permanent URL, I lost close to 2000 subscribers.
Before I changed my FeedBurner URL, my subscribers were around 2,600. Today, they are now in the mid 600’s. I have no idea if it will bounce back up to what it used to be, but I kinda doubt it. Anyway, goal #2 is to get my subscribers back to 2600 within 30 days. That means I need to average around 68 new subscribers per day in order for this to happen. I am not sure how I can do this, but I will try. Even though I know what it will take to get my subscribers back to where they were before, I still think this will be easier than keeping myself from changing my theme. lol
Goal #2 is to increase my RSS subscribers to 2,600 in 30 days!
So there you have it. Now, who said I wasn’t goal orientated? Anyway, I hope that this was equally as therapeutic for you as it was for me. Drop me a comment with some encouraging or taunting words. Also, feel free to place some friendly bets on whether you think I can last the 30 days or not. 
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39 comments
Garry, I really like the theme you’re running at the moment but you might want to check the JavaScript, I had a couple of warnings this morning in Safari for Mac that your site was producing “Slow Scripts” when I tried to read it. Most likely nothing but I thought you’d care to know.
I used to change theme often too. I love tweaking theme
Hey your blog looks like chow’s design 
hehehe.
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Hey Garry,
the first goal you’ll never accomplish. Let’s bett a plate of lasagne LOL
Hey Hussein, telling this you make things even worse for Garry. I bett TWO plates of lasagne ROFLOL
ciao
alex
Check out Big Blogger’s last blog post..Dump everything !
You changed themes?
I read your blog with Lynx Text Browser because you made me so dizzy with Theme changes, lol.
Check out CyberCoder’s last blog post..Fix A Wordpress Blog With One Click
What theme is this Garry? I am not going to tell you that I like it, but it might be a good theme for one of my sites.
Check out Fred @ MMO Explorer’s last blog post..Used Business Laptops for Sale
OK.. I like this one. Very clean and neat. Appeals to my military background of order lol. I guess I can say now that I really didn’t like the G’s on the other one. Thanks again for your continuing education.
Good luck with the rss challenge mate that’s going to be some increase in 30 days.
Check out Clog Money’s last blog post..Loving the Twitter but where are the comments?
I’m glad you aren’t going to change your theme for a while. I get used to themes on blogs and I like to know exactly where everything is when I visit them. Every time I come here I have to double check that I am at the right blog.
Check out Trent Brownrigg’s last blog post..How to Make Money by Saving Money
New theme looks very nice, btw i just suscribed to your feeds so you are now closer to completing your goal, hehe.
Check out David’s last blog post..Make Money Online with Bidvertiser
OMG, sadly you’ve already changed the site from what it looked like last night. dude, I give it a week tops. LOL
Check out Christine Senter’s last blog post..National Novel Writing Month
I’m very impressed at your restraint. If I were making a 30 day hands off plan, I would have looked for the single most obnoxious, glitchiest, loudest, etc theme that I could find. But then, my personal blog readers know that I’d rather be obnoxious than helpful if given the choice. (I do try to be both though, so it’s ok).
Check out WordVixen’s last blog post..You Wanna Make Some Money For Me?
Theme-o-phrenia, which according to Wikipedia is better known as Garryphrenia , is “a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. It most commonly manifests as a compulsive urge to modify your Wordpress theme”
LOL
Goal #2 sounds great to my ears, because in order to reach your goal you have to put at work all your best strategies and I (and the rest of your readers) can only learn from this challenge.
Garry I want to make you compliments and tell you that I’m very happy for you that you reached this stage, because you reached freedom, which is the real reason because we’re all behind making money: we want to be free, we want not to be worried about the bills or the mortgage of the house etc.
Now you have to choose what to do with this freedom !
I personally suggest running down the overall workhours in a week automatizating and outsourcing your work. A well known book suggests to work 4 hours each week. Once again what do you do then with the rest of the hours ? Here we tap into a topic that is very important to me: which is your life purpose ?
This is a though question, I’m thinking about it (not continously) over one and a half year now. Most people live without a life purpose. They get up when the allarm gets off, brushes their teeths, go to work 9 to 5, dinner, TV and go to bed. Loop it over and over again each day till retirment or death.
My purpose seems to be “helping improvement”, but I’m still not able to bring it to work properly.
Have a great day !
ciao
alex
Hi Christopher,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I do have a few java based scripts running. Two that come to mind are, the MyBlogLog widget and Google Analytics. I am guessing that MyBlogLog was the cause. Sometimes that little widget slows everything down. Thanks again for leaving me the comment and I am also happy that you like the theme.
Oh man… don’t tell me that. You are taunting me, aren’t you. I will resist and hold strong. lol
I knew that he was taunting me. lol
I do love lasagna. How can you ship this from Italy?
Hey that is a really cool browser by the way! Talk about having something that runs fast… Lynx is lightening fast.
Hi Fred,
This is just a design I made for myself. Should I start building themes for public release? I have a theme pack called ThemeClick that I need to get finished up. One day I’ll send the files to David.
I really want to see you stick with ONE theme for a long time, Garry
-Mike
You were in the military too, wow! Eric, what job have you not done yet?
Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t like the G’s before? lol
Hi Clog,
Thanks man. Indeed, this will be a tough challenge. You can always help by writing a quick post on your blog telling your ppl about mine.
Oh men, I’m so sure to win, that I tell you I’ll come into your kitchen and cook them personaly for you
LOL
Check out Big Blogger’s last blog post..Which is your Life Purpose ?
Hi Trent,
I know exactly where you are coming from, yet also too I guess I failed to understand that this has an effect on people that read my blog. Your comment actually helps me a lot. Thanks man, I appreciate it.
Hi David,
Thanks for the compliment and for your subscription to my feed. I visited your blog and see that you have had it up for less than a month. I think there might be some kind of glitch with your FeedBurner, it’s reporting 25k+ subscribers.
Ha!
I am to prove you wrong… I am to prove YOU ALL wrong! I will hold strong and not change my theme for 30 days! I feel GREAT!!!
lol, of course this is only day 1.
LOL!!
I actually considered loading up Default Theme and running that for 30 days. But in doing that, I knew that would affect my blog growth. It would have caused more harm than good. I think I have a difficult goal at hand as is with the current theme. Luckily, I think it looks half way decent and it is something that I am hoping can hold me over for 30 days. We’ll see.
Hi Alex,
I never really thought too much about it. I have been so focused on my goal of being able to run multiple sites to generate income comparable to an average salary one would get by working a decent job. Also, it’s much like watching grass grow. If you sit there on your porch and watch it, it doesn’t grow. However, if you forget about your grass, and don’t mow it for a month, indeed is has grown.
So with that said, when I look at my stats daily it seems the same. However, when I look at my stats and reflect on the difference from a year ago, I guess that is pretty amazing.
Purpose in life? Hmm… well, a lot of why I do what I do is so that I have the freedom to do what I want with my kids without having to get an “approved day off request” from a boss. If my son wants to sign up for Youth Football, it’s a done deal. If my daughter needs to be picked up from school because she doesn’t like to ride the bus, then she isn’t riding the bus and I’ll be there every day to pick her up.
So, for me, it might not sound like a lot, but my purpose in life is to teach my four kids about the world they live in and how to find personal joys and success from within it and how to cope and deal with the common misfortunes that can come from it too.
You and me both.
Have faith in me… I will make it the 30 days.
LOL!!!
I don’t care about the theme really. Content is king, remember! ROFLMBO!!!!!!!!
AL
Check out Allyn Paul’s last blog post..Winterize Your Lawn NOW!!
Good luck my friend, i gave up and paid for one…that way i’d have to be physicaly threatened before I changed it again LOL
i can change the color scheme though
LOL, I like theme changes but the content is really what I come back for. I can just see days 31 to 60 a new theme everyday
Check out Steve’s last blog post..Forget The Sugar and Eat Your Fruit
We shall see, my friend. We shall see.
Why not just remove that mybloglog widget
And Blogcatalog widget is better 
Check out Hussein’s last blog post..Clean Green WordPress Theme v1
Theme? What theme?
LOL
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Hey Gary I’m not sure what the story is with switching feeds but head over to thegrowinglife.com Clay managed to redirect subscriptions so that no readers were lost, I’m not sure how he did it but you might be able to get some advice out of him.
Hahaha, yeah right dude! That’s NOT going to happen! You….not tweak a theme, for 30 days straight…I’ll be watching to see this one man! Cuz I DO NOT think it can happen.
Good luck, what did you change your RSS address to? Am I missing something, do I need to resubscribe?
Check out Normal Joe’s last blog post..ASUS eePc 2G Surf That I Won From Big Ben Patton And Market Leverage
Good luck Garry!
Where do i place my Bett? lol
I’m with Joe
This just isn’t gonna happen 
:) Good luck though!! You will have to tell us all what you did to up the subs so much if you succeed 
Check out Forest’s last blog post..And We Have A Winner…..
I WON, I WON !
I knew it that I’ll be winning this bet !!!
Wow what a fantastic plate of lasagne I’ll have now…
Sorry Garry but the 30 days aren’t still over (6 days still ahead)
ciao
alex
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