This quote underscores what I believe to be the critical difference between Dust Off Your Dreams and other women’s retreats: the action plan we’ll help you develop from all this introspection and insight.

While there are a lot of retreats that call upon the wisdom of horses to reveal and explore the things that may be holding you back from your dreams, the Dust off Your Dreams Retreat then takes it all a crucial step further. By placing its focus on how to use and apply this information, this retreat will help you clarify your dream — and then take decisive action. (And, as they say, “Goals are nothing more than dreams with a plan and a timetable.”)

The “so what?” edge this retreat is designed to offer will equip its participants to leave the Dust Off Your Dreams Retreat with a plan and a mental toolbox stocked with specific strategies and action steps for moving forward on their freshly clarified dream.

Sometimes, it turns out, what blocks us most from our dreams is the fuzzy, more generalized picture we have of them. To shape our dreams to fit the realities of our lives takes courage, confidence and commitment (and often, the kind of gentle nudging we’ll be providing in our discussions, journaling and meditation exercises).  In fact, we’ve built our mission around Anne’s favorite quote:

“Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity and movement and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, ‘this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow.’ The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.” –Louis L’Amour

Now I’m sure Louis, being the cowboy sort, had no idea how well this wisdom would also apply to women — and the special opportunity midlife gives us to reinvent our lives to be “the sort of thing (we) wish it to be” for our own Second Act. Somewhere, I hope Louis is smiling at his unsung brilliance in the art of inspiring women. There’s something just right about this quote being at the center of what we’re doing in the heart of the Old West to help midlife women round up stray dreams and push them toward their own north star.

For more information or to sign up (only 10 spots left!) for the Dust off Your Dreams Retreat April 13-15 at the Wildcatter Ranch Resort and Spa in Graham, Texas (less than an hour’s drive west of DFW International Airport), go to www.dustoffyourdreamsretreats.com or call 1-888-773-8187.

Click here to order the book that started it all!

 Want to know more about The Smart Woman’s Guide to Midlife Horses? Click here to view book trailer!