Breathe low and slow.
In our Weekly Wins meeting today, we talked about something I didn't expect to come up: how to de-stress from having too much work.
Because here's what's happening inside BSA. Our members started diversifying their services, and now they're also turning work away. Which sounds great, until the work you do accept starts to pile up.
So we vented (lol) and shared strategies.
Reine offers Remote Simultaneous Interpreting and translation. Two very different skillsets, two very different energy demands. Her approach: long gaps between meetings, no translations due on the same day as an RSI assignment, and negotiating deadlines when she needs to. For recovery, she's tried meditation, exercise, and music.
Kara is a certified translator and also a Certified Mental Performance Consultant. This week she turned down agency work to focus on a large direct client project. She asked us a question worth sitting with: what kind of recovery do you need? If your adrenaline is still pumping after an interpretation, you need to move. Walking helps with self-regulation and mood. If you're beating yourself up over a typo in a document you already sent, a guided self-compassion meditation may be more useful than a walk.
And I learned something today that I really wanted to share with you.
Kara showed us how to breathe. There are more nerve endings in the lower part of our lungs. When you breathe low and slow (think belly expanding, not chest rising), you activate your parasympathetic nervous system. The one that calms things down. Build the right breathing into your daily routine and you can end a full work day feeling calmly alert instead of frantic.
These are the kinds of conversations we have inside BSA.
If you'd like to be in the room for more of them (and learn how to get to the point where your problem is too much of the right work) join us tomorrow.
Language Skills to Pay the Bills. Saturday, June 27 at 10 AM Eastern. Free.
We'll cover different language services you can add to your portfolio and how to push past the fear in the current language landscape to become your clients' go-to translator.
To your success,
Catharine
P.S. The workshop is free. But I'm also opening the doors to something new tomorrow for anyone ready to make Q3 different. More on that live.
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