Progress doesn’t happen in the comfort zone

Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. An ATA-certified French to English translator and Colorado court-certified interpreter, she also holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College. For more tips and insights, join the Training for Translators mailing list!

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! Thanks to this week’s newsletter sponsor, The Creative Language Conference; (early bird rate GBP 110 + VAT **I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you). CLConf targets the intersection of language, culture, and technology, with a focus on creativity and innovation. A past participant calls it the most engaging online conference they’ve ever attended! 

This week’s topic: Progress doesn’t happen in the comfort zone

The comfort zone…as freelancers, the comfort zone is often our happy place. We cruise along, doing the same things, for the same clients, for months/years/decades (and I’m not criticizing you, I do this too!). 

The comfort zone has some advantages:

• Most of us would rather work than market
• Repeat clients tend to decrease our overhead/non-billable time, meaning that we’re spending more time making money (a good thing!)
• There’s nothing wrong with doing work that you feel confident about 

However, we tend to ignore the hidden costs of the comfort zone. I recently heard someone say, “the comfort zone is a nice place, but nothing grows there.” 
Specifically, when we hang out in the comfort zone, we risk:

• Missing opportunities: we don’t know what else is out there, because we never look for it
• Stagnant income: our current, comfort-zone clients are unlikely to offer us significantly more money, particularly if we don’t ask for it
• Burnout from boring work: because we never translate/interpret/write/subtitle/edit anything new or challenging 

How do we push the boundaries of the comfort zone in a responsible way? 

When we exit the comfort zone, we don’t want to be skydiving without a net. I’m very much *not* a fan of “fake it ’till you make it,” or taking on work that you feel unqualified to do. That’s not the challenge zone, it’s the danger zone. But yet, there are two things I think we should all be doing:

1. Reframing discomfort: instead of “Ugh, this is mildly uncomfortable, I shouldn’t be doing it,” what about, “Mild discomfort is a sign that I’m trying something new, which is a recipe for growth.” 
2. Intentionally creating discomfort in a manageable way. Raise your rates with new clients when you’re already busy. Connect with a dream client on LinkedIn (it’s hard to *really* mess up in a 200-character connection note!). Take a class that could lead you toward a new specialization or service offering. 

An additional risk of the comfort zone: nothing in life, not even the comfort zone, lasts forever! In the past year, I’ve heard from a number of translators who surfed the comfort zone, translating for a handful of good agencies for a long time, and doing no marketing. The risk there is that your business muscles atrophy: freelancing becomes like a regular job where you set the hours. This strategy works until it doesn’t: when those clients make a fairly rapid shift to machine translation with a human editor, all of a sudden, the comfort zone train pulls into the station, and you’re left on the platform. Don’t let this be you! Try at least a small step outside the comfort zone (reply to this e-mail if you want to let me know how it goes). 

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Have a great week!

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