In this vlog, Mary Schiller documents Day 2 of her self‑imposed 30‑day "follow my dreams" challenge in Paris. She thanks viewers for supporting Day 1 and invites anyone watching to join the experiment. While walking to her favorite department store, Le Bon Marché, and later a nearby park, she shares two key realizations from Day 1: (1) she works far better with self‑imposed deadlines than a strict hourly schedule, and (2) she must "follow the fun"—choosing activities that feel inspiring and enjoyable. She describes discovering a fiction‑writing course that sparked fresh ideas and could inform her novel. Throughout the day she walks about four miles, makes progress on her novel by clarifying the main character’s internal and external goals, practices French with store staff, and reviews a chapter from a language‑test preparation book that arrived from her husband. She ends the day with a few evening commitments (a program call and a replay to watch) and encourages viewers to comment and join her 30‑day journey.
Chapters
I am not a morning person. It is day 2 of Mary following her dreams. 30 days. It's July 9th, 2024, and I want to say first of all a huge, huge thank you for watching day 1. And if you posted a comment on there saying you were joining me or supporting me in some way, I so appreciate that. So whenever you are watching this video, you are welcome to jump into this process with me. Because I love company and I love support. So thank you. On day 1, I had a couple of big realizations about things that will help me as I go forward in this experiment, this challenge, whatever you want to call it, and I'm going to share those with you in just a second. But right now, I am going to walk to the metro and head to my favorite department store here in Paris, Le Bon Marché, because I am always inspired when I go there, and I just felt the need to get out of the apartment today even though it's going to be very hot. So expect me to look quite shiny today.
I am now in the park that is next to Le Bon Marché, and my timing was perfect because apparently there was quite a downpour while I was in the metro because the benches are wet and I can see the ground was wet. But I am perfectly dry here in the sun and it is warm. So I wanted to share two realizations that I had on day one that might be helpful to you if you are pursuing your dreams, pursuing passions, and you're wondering maybe why something isn't working for you. The first one is that I was a good employee, but I was also a terrible employee because I couldn't work on a schedule per se. I am much more of a deadline-oriented person. So for example, I had thought that maybe during this 30-day challenge experiment, whatever you want to call it, of following my dreams, that I would set a schedule for myself where I would say, okay, every day from 10 to noon I will work on my novel, then I'll have lunch, and then every day from 1 to 2 I'll practice French, and after 2 PM I will make sure to get out for a walk, and then I will do some other business-related things. I thought I could do that. Not gonna happen because I don't think that way. It's not how I operate. So like today I wanted to get some inspiration by coming to my favorite department store in Paris And I needed to do that in the morning. So I'm setting a deadline for myself instead related to these projects. So for example, I might set a deadline that says by the end of day 5, I will have the most important aspects of my character sorted out, my main character in my novel. Or I might say by the end of day 4, I will have gone through this chapter, this chapter, and this chapter in the French study book, something like that.
The second realization that I had is that I I love to follow the fun. If you've been around me at all, you know that's one of my life's mottos and has been for a long time. And so I can't follow the fun if I am sticking to a strict schedule like that. And I also need to try to make everything that I'm doing into something that is really inspiring to me, or I just won't do it. It's, it's that simple. So for instance, I uncovered a course that I bought quite a while a while ago that has to do with fiction writing, and I started going through it this morning before I even got out of bed, and I realized that it was really sparking some new ideas and it was really fun. It was a totally different way of looking at fiction writing, and I thought, okay, I wasn't planning on doing this, but this seems really fun. And even if I start working on a slightly different fiction project through doing the exercises in this course that will help me with my novel. So basically, my suggestion would be, if you are good at following a schedule, then set a schedule. If that doesn't work for you, then set some deadlines. And in the midst of all of it, don't forget to follow the fun and do things that are interesting and exciting and inspiring to you.
So the next part of this video, you will see what I did or did not accomplish on day 2.
And again, thanks for joining me for this series and jump in.
I love the idea of you participating with me, and even if that's just through posting a comment, I'd appreciate it.
So let's see how Mary did, shall we? Okay, it is 5 PM on day 2 and I am calling it a day. On the plus side, I walked about 4 miles today, so that's pretty good. I also made some headway with my main character in my novel. I started to settle on what her real internal goals are in the book. I am also very much settled now on what the external goal is, meaning like what the surface story and plot is focused on, and basically that isn't changing a whole lot from my draft, but the internal goals are definitely becoming much clearer, and having those clarified is going to make a huge difference. So I'm going to keep going. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm going to keep going. I also spoke French today with some people in the store. I managed to go through a little bit of one of the chapters in the book that I'm using to review So that's some progress, but, uh, the bigger thing on that front is that the book that my husband ordered arrived today, and this is a book that is specifically geared for the language test that we are going to take. So that's positive. I'm going to start working on that tomorrow. So overall, a fairly successful day, made some progress. I have a few more things to do, uh, this evening not related to all of that, but I'm attending a call for a program that I'm in, and I also want to watch the replay of something that I couldn't attend last night. But those are just fun things that I'm gonna do. So overall, I'm feeling pretty good. How about you?
Are you joining me in this dreamy challenge for the next 30 days?
Let me know in the comments, and let's see what happens to Mary tomorrow.
