OK y'all, time for a little story about believing in yourself (a thread).

When I started out in digital marketing, I was 19 years old. I'm 40 now. I've been doing it this whole time. It's what I've always loved. I love what I do.

And I've done a lot of it. I've worked in...

agencies, software companies, startups, app development shops, and my own business. But for 20+ years now, I've always said, "Oh, but I'm not a designer." I've had to do design now and then, and I'm always happy with how it turns out, but...

I could never believe in myself to create a design for anyone else. Then I started designing more. And more. And I started to really like it. But I've still said "But I'm not a designer," until tonight.

I started in this industry as an intern, then a copywriter, then...

I was doing research into Yahoo! and started writing SEO copy, then I started making wireframes and doing usability work, and then they decided to have me manage the whole project and I moved into project management. This was all in the space of a year and a half.

But I NEVER did design. And so I got it into my head that although I knew all of these different areas (+some coding), I was incapable of designing things, even if I really liked the things I was designing. (We can self-talk some really negative sh*t to ourselves, can't we?)

When @leahschoolcraft was looking for WordPress help last night, I reached out to her. Which led to me kind of redesigning her site, in line with her awesome logo. And you know what? I really like it. And I was talking with my husband, and I said, "You know what?..."

"I think I'm a designer! Like, I think I'm really not terrible at it!" And he responded with one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me: "...like, people have different aesthetics, but for you, usability is your aesthetic." And that just made me so proud, and...

I thought I'd tweet to remember it down the road. So I can look back on it in my bad days. When I don't believe in myself.

So if there's something that you feel like you're "bad" at, and you want to get better, you know how you do that? By being bad at it until you can...

make something you like. Then share it. So I'm sharing my design now...because I think I might be a designer.

The original site Leah handed me is below. The updates to the site I made were somewhat restricted by the platform and theme...there are other things...

I would change, but I'm proud of myself for doing what I could and how it turned out. You can view the updated site at: http://www.discussingdigital.com !

This was the original. Leah wanted something warmer, that coordinated with her logo and visual aesthetic.

Oh, and btw, Leah's writing is awesome...you should definitely check out http://www.discussingdigital.com  to see that in action!