Help me I need guidance. Help me

[smileyhogwash]

Hello, I apologize if I'm doing anything wrong here, I am unfamiliar with forums and just generally clueless.

For context, my website is sillynet.neocities.org. I am a big fan of highly detailed custom personal websites as I'm sure anyone who is reading this is. It was about two years ago that I found Neocities for the first time and was fascinated by it and all of the mega awesome websites hosted on it. it inspired me to learn HTML and CSS to make my own website. About a year later I would say I had gotten a pretty good grasp on it, not crazy by any means but just fairly decent, and I set out to make my very own website like all of the cool kidz on neocities do. However, today I still seem to find myself "setting out" and not accomplishing much of anything.

I just recently published the new layout for my website that I had been working on after many months of inactivity, and it's quite barren. The idea was to get the groundwork for the homepage out and constantly update & improve it, but since I've done that I have felt a rapid decline in motivation and a general dissatisfaction with how I've built it. despite it not even having been a week since then, it has gotten me thinking what the actual point of me doing this is, not that I doubt personal websites as a whole, but I feel as if I am trying to imitate something I find cool with no real purpose or goal. the biggest thing I struggle with is coming up with ideas for things, I feel like I'm pretty good at solving problems or at least working around them but with zero creative guidance I feel kind of lost and hopeless.

I feel as if I'm in some sort of feedback loop. I see so many websites with the standard few pages, blog, guestbook, ETC. that my brain kind of subconsciously consumes and then regurgitates later on. I don't really know if any of this makes sense and I'm probably rambling, but it makes me feel like the process of me constructing a website is like a checklist of stuff I have to do and not a genuine creation of my own. I don't have any goals or reasoning to keep it going.

and it doesn't help that all the fonts on my website looked weird and thin and gross when I viewed my site on firefox for the first time (for some reason I've been using chrome to preview the website?)

I love neat little websites and I'd love to be able to call one my own, but maybe it just isn't for me. I really don't want to think that, so I've tried not to. If i had any less self control I would have deleted my website in some sort of toddler fit already. what do you think about this? please let me know anything you think could help, whatever your mentality is when it comes to this, what inspired you to create a website and what keeps you going, anything. even something simple can help. I think I'm just looking at it the wrong way. thank you melonlanders..!@_@

[zzizful]

hi!! i hope i've interpreted this correctly, if not, you can feel free to tell me if i've misunderstood any of what u said!

i'm currently like, barely 2 months into setting up my site? so i know 2 months isn't really all that comparable to 2 YEARS!! but if you'd want my two cents, the best motivation to keep going is, simply to just make something that you're proud of! my site isn't the most groundbreaking thing on the planet, but i am proud of it given the amount of time and effort i put into it, it's cute and something i'm very very happy with! i'm proud of it and i like it because it is something I made alone, something that is unique to me! a personal website is something you create for YOU. it's something for YOU to be proud of, i feel like maybe, you've just lost sight of that.

if you are constantly in a loop of wanting to replicate other people's websites, you won't really get anywhere. it can be hard to be satisfied with your work if you keep on setting an imaginary status quo, even after you have already accomplished something that took work and effort! the individuality of every site is what makes it so special in the first place, and i guarantee that's the very reason why you wanted to start making one! yes, you can "set out" to do something, but you should also take time to be proud of where you currently you are and what have you have made right now, in the present. be proud of even the smallest things you've accomplished with your site, for even writing a singular line of code, be proud!

i understand the feeling very well, the sense of having no direction and feeling as if you are stuck in a constant loop of imitation. the feeling exists even outside of the medium of sites, but i've felt that the best remedy for that feeling was to simply just.. be happy with my work, be authentic with what you want, what do YOU want for your site? i hear all this talk about other websites, this figurative "cool kidz of neocities", but have you ever considered that you, with how much effort and time you put into learning html and css, and making your own site from the ground up, counts as one of them?!    thats a fun spin to put on it.

and hey, if truly, you cant shake off the feeling and dissatisfaction you have with your site. i'd recommend just simply taking a break from it, no, you shouldn't outright NUKE it, but take some time for yourself. be kind to yourself, the site is for you, it's something for you to accomplish at your own pace, for you to look at and (i've said this a million times here) be proud of. and if it really isn't doing you justice and making you feel bad, put a pause on all this site stuff and return when you really feel ready!

i hope these words can help u in any way, i hope that whatever u do in the future with your site is what is true to u!! and if it makes u feel any better, i personally, really like ur site. :D everything is so cool and i especially love the blog page! 

[smileyhogwash]

Thank you for this...! I certainly feel a bit better after reading this and will take your advice into consideration. I may not have communicated my thoughts as clearly as I hoped to considering I wrote this at twelve in the morning, but you did a pretty good job of understanding either way

[Cendol]

As someone who works in the field as a designer - let me assure you - it is 100% normal. You are probably a perfectionist to some level, and the problem is you may think you need to get it right the first time. To that I say, start somewhere, and build on it, and figure out what you want your website to be. Is it a personal journal? A community? A place to share knowledge? Art gallery?

There is a well known quote "the worst client you will ever deal with is yourself" because you are your worst critic. Trust me when I say I have made hundreds of personal websites and am, once again redoing mine, but I also look back and think - if I had kept my website and just updated it as I went, how much content would be on the page and how much history!

There will always be websites out there that is better or cooler, first figure out your style‌, then add different elements as needed to build on it.

There is a website in Japanese, maybe you have heard of it https://alf-s-room.main.jp/ this guy's website has been the same for years, and he still updates and has the same layout. If you find the history you will see however, he has done updates to his mascot and does updates, as needed, not all at once.

Just remember, if you try to boil the ocean, you will never succeed, go pot by pot and maybe you will make a dent in your area of reach, given time.