In this vlog, Mary Schiller records the first day of a self‑imposed 30‑day challenge to stop playing it safe and actively pursue several personal and professional dreams. She reflects on a recent realization that she has been listening to self‑doubt for the past two years, decides to act, and announces that she will document the journey daily on YouTube for accountability and to inspire others. Her concrete goals for the month include rewriting her 2012‑13 novel (using the "Save the Cat Writes a Novel" method), improving her French to pass a language test and eventually obtain French citizenship, exploring new business ideas, and enhancing her physical health through daily walks and home strength training. She outlines the resources she will use (novel‑writing guide, French grammar books) and acknowledges her current skill levels (main character development is weak, French at B1‑B2). The video ends with a brief Day‑1 report: she made modest progress on each project, feels a mix of excitement and anxiety, and promises to share a helpful insight in the next episode, inviting viewers to join the 30‑day quest.
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Is this really what I want to do? I honestly feel like I am making a huge mistake right now. Like a huge mistake. But I am going to go ahead anyway because what's the worst that can happen? I look like an idiot? That's nothing new. That has happened before. So what am I doing? What am I doing? As I am recording this, it is Monday, July 8th, 2024. Last night, Sunday night, I came to kind of a big realization, which was that I have been playing it too safe recently. And by recently, I mean, in all honesty, probably about the last 2 years. I have not been really pursuing the things that I want to pursue in life. And I think this realization occurred to me because I had a fantastic weekend. I mean, it was a really, really good weekend, and so much of what I gathered over the weekend had to do with activating what is calling to us inside and just like flipping the switch, turning the switch on, making moves, doing things instead of thinking about doing things. And I have thought about doing a few things in my life over the last couple of years, and I just have not done them. And I decided, you know what, for the next 30 days, I am going to do these things, period. I'm just going to do them. And not only am I going to do them, I'm going to document it on my YouTube channel every single day. For accountability to myself. And if you want to join in on your own 30-day quest to follow your dreams along with me, that would be amazing. I would love to hear from you. Some people might say, well, Mary, you have been following your dreams. You know, when you lost your job in 2016, you decided to start your own coaching business, and then you moved to France the next year, etc., etc. You travel a lot. You have been coaching and writing books and all these things. That is all true. However, I don't feel like I have been following my dreams at nearly that same level in the past couple of years, and I know why this is true. I know why. It's because I started to listen to doubt. I started to pay attention to those little voices in the back that say, oh, you shouldn't be doing that, or you can't do that, or you can't succeed, blah blah blah. That's not a crime to do that. We all do it. I am just tired of it now. I'm tired of it, and I'm gonna move on, and I'm going to start to follow what is calling to me right now. So what are my dreams at this point? Well, I have a lot of them. One of the biggest ones is I want to reach more people with this message of it's not too late. It's not too late for you to do what you want to do. And of course, if I'm going to share that message with people, I have to do a better job of that myself. I have to allow myself more of this freedom to follow my passions, follow my dreams, and do what I want. And that's a big reason why I am documenting this on YouTube, because I want to reach more people with this message. One of the other dreams I have that's been in my heart of hearts for a dozen years now is I want to rewrite my novel. I wrote a novel back in 2012, 2013, somewhere in there, and it's got a lot of potential. It just needs a lot of work. So that is something that I'm going to actively pursue over these next 30 days is working on this rewrite. The other thing that I really want to do is I've got to improve my French. I want to do this. I have to do this. I have a big dream of becoming a French citizen, and my language skills are not at the caliber they need to be. So that's a big thing I'm going to be working on this month. I think in addition to those two things and sharing this journey with you and inviting you to join me in this pursuit over the next 30 days, I'm going to be open to seeing what happens. I'm going to be open to new ideas for what I can offer as a business owner. I'm going to really fling the doors open in terms of ideas in that regard because I think my vision there has become too narrow. So that's something I'm going to pursue. In my physical health, I do have some things that I want to do as well. I want to make sure that I get out for a fairly lengthy walk every day. I don't have a car. I haven't owned a car since 2006. So I walk a lot anyway. I could do more of this. I also want to do some strength type training, mostly at home. I am going to be spending a lot of time with these books over the next 30 days. Save the Cat Writes a Novel is going to become my new best friend. Same with these grammar and French books. I'm actually probably more in between a B1 and B2 level, but I need to go back and review and just make sure because I'm going to take a language test later this year. And I want to make sure that I can pass it. The next part of this video will be reporting on what I did today and whether I really succeeded in following my dreams. And when I say following my dreams, I mean like putting all my energy into this. I need to live my life more on the edge. I need to live in a way that is much more exciting and thrilling and risky and I just want to see what can occur over 30 days of doing that. This is a little depressing because I am really good at certain things in writing, and of course Save the Cat Writes a Novel, the very first thing it talks about is character, and that's probably my weakest link in my novel, so I'm hoping that if I get my main character sorted out, I'll be in good shape. I'm pretty good with the secondary characters in my novel, but not the main character. I need to fix this, and I'm trying not to be upset that I have so much work to do. It is now the end of day 1. I'm calling it. It is just about 5 PM. I'm on my way to the supermarket, and if I had to sum up today, it would be basically I started— I touched the projects that are important to me and I made a tiny bit of headway on them. I have something that I realized that is really going to help me, so I'm going to share that with you tomorrow because it'll probably help you too. So come back tomorrow and see what happens. Bye!
