Yup, never force too much. The only place where you sometimes need quite a lot of force is to attach the cooler on the cpu.
I touch the radiator before I begin building a computer, and that's it. No need for fancy grounding strips and all. But it can be different when walking on carpet or wearing some types of fabric, maybe.
Oh, and RTFM. RTFM. RTFM. And again, RTFM. Internet guides are very good to get an idea of what you have to do, but for some steps you will have to use the manual since not every company builds their stuff in the same way...
And for the rest be very careful while buying your stuff so that you don't end up with an AGP card on a pci-e board or DDR for a DDR2 board or a custom cooler which doesn't fit your socket or a psu which doesn't have the right connectors for your graphics card and stuff like that.
In fact it comes down to reading a lot, a lot of reviews (which one has the best value/money (everything), which one overclocks the best (cpu, ram, graca), which one is the most reliable (hard disk), which one is the nicest (case), which one has the most working space (case), which one is the most stable (psu), which one is the most silent (cpu cooler), which one has the best features and connections (mainboard)) and so on. edit: also warranty is important, especially on hard disks.
It takes some time to get into it, but its very much worth it! It will save you a lot of money and you will learn a lot, and if something goes wrong, you'll be able to fix it yourself.