Learning To Trust My Gut

As some of you might know, I earn most of my money working as a freelance translator from English, German and Russian into Latvian.

The market is small and pretty saturated, so it isn't easy to get jobs even with my 30 years of experience, wide field of expertise and eager readiness to learn. Sometimes, I can't get a decent job for months.

And, then, they often come in bundles, so it's impossible to take them all. In the past, I, sometimes, accepted jobs, that didn't suit me, just out of fear not to get any.

It caused loads of stress to get them done in time and good quality.

Sometimes, I had even to turn away another, better, offer just because I had already accepted the first one and there was no way to do both of them in time.

For the last year or so, I am learning to trust my gut and to refuse offers, that don't suit me well.

Yesterday, I received one of them after more than a month without any decent ones. The money was pretty good, but the task and the deadline were almost impossible.

At first, I was ready to take it out of desperation, but, thank goodness, technical issues prevented me from doing it right away.

As the time passed and I looked more closely at the project, it didn't feel like the right one for me. So I turned it away. In spite of the pressure from the agency and even my youngest son. :)

And I got ready to receive at least another one today. Don't you think I didn't have my doubts!

But that train was gone. If I wouldn't receive another offer, there would be another week without decent translation jobs for me.

But, shortly after noon today, there it was! The task, the rate and the deadline suited me much better!

There would be less money, as it was smaller than the first one, but that was OK with me, as it meant much less stress as well.

The project manager and I needed 4 challenging hours to make sure the job is technically doable for me. But, now, it's all good and I'm looking forward to a working week end without bad stress. :)

Some time ago, I have started to believe, that earning money doesn't need to be hard for me. And such situations help me trust my intuition more and more. :)