I was so excited to have my women’s leadership retreat this past weekend! The group of women that attended were all so wonderful and it went so well! What I wanted to share with you though is the behind the scenes of what happened to make the retreat a reality.
I was thinking about doing a retreat in 2019 and had created a plan in my head for all the things that I would do back in October. I just had to find a place to have it. I began to think about places that would be fun and Lake Geneva, WI came to mind. It is only about a half hour away from me and it has such a cool little town with beautiful lakes.
I went on the Vacation Rental By Owner site just to look at what types of houses they had to offer. I picked out the weekend of April 5-7 and started searching. I knew that I wanted everyone that came to have their own bedroom so it had to have lots of space! I found a house right on the lake with 7 bedrooms and it was just perfect for a retreat. (see the picture of the view from the house below) It also had a few restaurants within walking distance so I went ahead and put the deposit down to book the rental.
I was thinking about the Field of Dreams movie, when Kevin Costner plowed down all of the corn on part of his farmland and built a baseball field. He had heard a voice that said “if you build it, he will come.” Of course he had doubts, but he trusted that it was the right thing to do. When I thought about my situation, it was more like I hope at least 5-6 women will come to the retreat! It was a bold move to reserve this house, when I had no attendees yet. Of course, as the date started getting closer and I had to pay for the rest of the rental, I had my share of doubts. What if no one wanted to come? I knew that I just had to stay positive and believe that the retreat was going to happen with all the right women attending.
I share this background story with you so that you can see that everyone has self-doubts at different times. These doubts show up especially when you are doing something new and it is pushing you out of your comfort zone. I want you to know that you can believe in yourself. Trying new things can be scary, but know that you can trust your gut and believe that you are doing the right thing.
Think about the positive side of what could happen instead of focusing on the negative. There are always great things that you can see instead of the bad things. In my case, I knew I would just have a party with family and friends if I couldn’t find anyone to attend the retreat. It took all the pressure off of me and my doubts went away. When that pressure went away, I found all these wonderful women who were so excited to attend! What self-doubts do you have that you can move past and do something great instead?
