Episode 14: Smart Habits During Social Isolation: A Special Episode With Sara Maria Hasbun
It has been a strange few weeks, hasn’t it? The global COVID-19 pandemic turned our whole world upside down. It's impossible not to be affected by it in some way.
That's why we decided to record this special episode. We are so grateful to our guest for meeting with us virtually to share some great advice on how to come out of this experience feeling stronger.
Sara Maria Hasbun is the founder of Meridian Linguistics, a language services agency providing translation, language data collection, language data analysis, and linguistic annotation services to technology companies. She also blogs about her adventures in "extreme language learning" at misslinguistic.com.
Sara Maria currently lives in Beijing and has been practicing social isolation for more than two months as a result of COVID-19. We found her tips and encouragement very uplifting, and we hope that you'll feel the same way after listening to this episode.
Here is a summary of we discussed in this episode:
What Sara Maria’s experience with social isolation has been like
How her social life and mental health have been throughout this experience
What she did to stay busy
How to overcome the feeling of uncertainty over what comes next
How to deal with fear related to the health of your loved ones
How to stay in touch with friends and family during this time
How to deal with the disruption to your daily routine
How to overcome anxiety and the inability to focus
What to do if you’re worried for your financial future and the future of our profession
Tips for those who are living and working in a foreign country—far from their family and home—during the COVID-19 pandemic
Our smart habit hacks (as well as one from a listener!) during this time of social distancing and home confinement
links and resources that we mentioned in this episode:
“It’s a really good time to think hard about how to future-proof your business and how to make sure that you’re ready for the world that comes out of this crisis… It’s a double benefit: number one, it’s a mood stabilizer. It just helps you generally to be focused on something that’s healthy for your brain and keeps your mood up, keeps your spirits up. And it also hopefully helps your business in the long term.”
Thank you for listening! We hope that you stay safe and healthy, while finding small joys in this difficult time.
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