How to AIM High, Even in Challenging Times

By Lorrie Thomas Ross

The inspiration for this article began on the floor of my living room. I remember sipping tea while still my pajamas on a Sunday afternoon. I looked at my sleeping cats and smiled as I paused to watch my daughter play with her L.O.L Surprise! Dolls. Then the emotions from the months of quarantine began to sink in. I gave myself full permission to feel all the feelings, took in a very deep breath, and realized what women needed right now was for me to be honest and authentic – personally and professionally.

My life isn’t perfect. But it is perfectly wonderful. I am a nationally unrecognized, 40-something wife, mom and business owner. This time has been challenging, but it’s also been very eye-opening for me in so many ways. I have been savoring the extraordinary (as in extra-ORDINARY) things in life and have had a lot of clarity on how we keep our aim, even in these times.

We can stay motivated even when there is so much change and uncertainty by simply keeping our heads up and AIM high.

Now before you reach your hand through the screen to smack me with my positivity, let me be very clear about something:

AIM is an acronym – Affirmation, Inspiration, and Motivation.

I’m not asking you to radiate positivity, I’m asking you to nurture yourself. AIM can do that.

The word affirmation stems from the Latin word affirmare, originally meaning “to make steady, strengthen.” Affirmation means asserting facts strongly, to yourself AND to others. The first thing I did when the pandemic started was to make powerful declarations.

• I vowed to be a stronger leader to best support my team, clients, my family…and myself. That began by allowing myself to be more human and let my guard down a lot.
• I declared that I would use this time to get things done that I’ve been putting off for no good reason (like finishing my second book) but on my terms. No guilt, no shame. As it felt right for me.
• I owned that the little things that had bothered me for too long were going to be addressed or omitted. I fired a vendor who I did not align with, kick-started home projects that I was no longer going to wait to complete, cleaned closets and garages, and purged!
• I recognized that this time of no travel, commuting and live meetings was an opportunity to strengthen my product and service offerings (I re-tooled my website for Wild Web Women) launched an amazing low-cost membership program to help women, and optimized my marketing, operations, and administrative practices for both WMT and WWW.

The women I am working with are not wilting in these wild times, they are growing into their amazing, authentic selves and in that, are becoming amazingly inspiring to others.

In addition to making affirmations, I wrote them down to stay positive and proactive. 

The mind is for thinking, not storing.

In these times, I have altered the ways I get inspiration. We have to find ways to stay mentally stimulated, inspired and creative. Women are creative beings, we have to tune-in to that and nurture this! I also realized that inspiration isn’t just seeking inspiration, it is also about being inspiring. Inspiration is also about offering emotional support or encouragement.

Be inspiring to others AND to yourself. 

• Write down things that inspire you. As you do this, don’t try to impress anyone, simply write down what rocks your world (for me it’s things like food, fashion, art and chilling with daughter and my fur babies.

• Next, write down ways that you can inspire others. This can be as easy as taking time every day to be supportive in online communities, sharing more photos on Instagram, writing helpful social media posts, responding to social posts or making a more concentrated effort to live by example.

If you have the motivation to grow, know that that growth means change. Nobody grows cuddled up on the couch sipping tea and watching movies! Running a virtual business for almost 15 years (my team and I work out of 5 different states, all from home) I am so grateful that we have working from home mastered, Because I love the work I do and have deep relationships with my clients and team, I still feel more motivated than ever to work hard to not just survive, but to thrive in these times.

While you cannot control everything, you can choose to control your choices and actions.

If you are not feeling motivated, your heart, mind and body are telling you something. LISTEN. Maybe this is an opportunity to re-evaluate and retool.

While I can’t predict what the future holds, I do believe that, to a certain point, we can control what happens within our own lives as long as we don’t lose sight of our AIM.

Lorrie Thomas Ross, aka The Marketing Therapist, is a transformational marketing advisor and speaker. She is the CEO of Web Marketing Therapy®, a full-service digital marketing agency that diagnoses, prescribes, and guides healthy sustainable marketing solutions. Through Wild Web Women, she helps female entrepreneurs root, sow, and grow businesses that support the happy, healthy, and wealthy lives they want and deserve.