I purchased my domain name (www.mybasicjourney.com) on July 16, 2018.

At this point, I had no idea what I was doing. I just bought a website, and I wanted to start a blog, but I didn’t know where to start. Like anyone who has never done research into website design, I had no idea what a host site was. I also didn’t know that I would be watching HOURS of YouTube tutorials. As soon as I thought up the name My Basic Journey, I just knew that was it; That was the name of my website, my blog, my brand. That was the name I have been looking for all of these years.

One night I was watching videos on how to start a YouTube channel. I came across a video that said in order to be successful on YouTube, you have to direct your videos towards a specific niche. (I.E. Instead of making a channel all about dogs, you would make a channel all about Pomeranians.) I somewhat agree with having a focused channel and an overall theme. However, choosing such a pinpointed topic doesn’t leave much wiggle room for creativity.

I tried starting an essential oil business.

I named it Essentially Chantelle, which is as unoriginal as you can get in the essential oil business. Really though, I was having such a hard time deciding. When I joined this network marketing company, I joined because I loved the oils and I thought it would be cool to earn some extra cash on the side. After a couple weeks of throwing myself into entrepreneurship, I quickly realized that I was legitimately starting my own business. I had the custom-made business cards to prove it.

I loved it. Mostly, I loved the online aspect of it, and the live videos, and helping people find the wonders of natural medicine. Around 6 months in I realized this was not was I was passionate about. I love essential oils, don’t get me wrong. However, if I’m going to be putting this much money, time and effort into a business, I want it to be about more than just essential oils. I also didn’t want to be a “salesman.”

I want it to be focused on what I’m passionate about most, and that is the journey I’m on right now and will be on forever. A journey to find the truth.

A journey to living as naturally and simply as possible in this complicated and deceptive society. I am on a journey of self-love and self-care, with a large focus on veganism, minimalism, travel and the law of attraction. My priority: to help others find meaning in their own lives and help them love themselves too.

So this video is playing, and telling me that I need to focus on a certain niche; I am disagreeing with it and hashing out the argument in my head because of my personal experience of putting myself in a box. I am multifaceted and always will be. Around this time is when the thought of being on my basic journey popped into my head.

I instantly loved it. The first thing I did was google it just to make sure there wasn’t a website with that name already. I checked all of the social media sites to make sure it was open on all of the platforms I would be on. After I saw that it was available, I googled how to claim a website. I came across a YouTube video that walked me step-by-step to buying a domain name.

Within 20 minutes, I was a proud owner of www.mybasicjourney.com.

After this happened, I was overwhelmed with all of the possibilities. I had never built a website and didn’t have any knowledge of how to do so. It took 12 days of thinking and stuffing myself with web design education, free from the internet, before I hopped onto HostGator, signed up and launched my website. From July 28th until right now, I have been working all hours on this website, and I can proudly add website designer to my resume.

I love the whole process of web design. I’m honestly considering taking legitimate courses to learn the trade a little better. I’ve had my website “under construction” since I launched it on July 28th, and I’ve been getting so excited to reveal it to everyone. I’ve been working so hard and learning the craft of designing websites. I’m happy to say am so close to being done. I have some photos to take, pages to tweak and graphics to make, but I think I could be done in the next week if I tried!

I don’t know where this journey is going to take me, but I have a feeling I’m going in the right direction.

xoxo