A time will come in your career when you need to downshift or make a change. Downshifting—similar to when you drive a car and intentionally shift gears to a lower speed and intensity—applies to your career too. It’s when you acknowledge that you need to cut down on the work hours and reduce the amount of pressure you’re dealing with. If you don’t take paid time off, disconnect and go on a long vacation or switch to another type of role, you feel you’ll end up burned out.
The contrast between downshifting and quiet quitting is intentionality. Whereas quiet quitters hide the fact that they’re cyberloafing, a downshifter is open and honest about their mindset. You actually want to speak with your boss, human resources, colleagues, mentors, career coaches and recruiters to figure out what to do next.
You’ve Lost Your Mojo, But Need To Keep Going
You notice that you’re mentally checking out, but need to keep working. You’re not quiet quitting; you’re just tired and worn out. The challenge is that you’re not in the financial situation to throw in the towel, so you must soldier on. Your kids are nearing college age, the roof needs fixing and one of the cars keeps breaking down. The expenses keep escalating. With inflation and higher costs, you worry about how you can afford the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to. There are concerns about whether or not you will need to push back your retirement into your late 60s or early 70s.
How To Downshift
Understandably, you’re feeling overwhelmed. Take time to process what has been happening at work. Start thinking about what you want to do next. Speak with your manager to discuss how you’re feeling, so they know that you’re not purposely slacking or shirking responsibilities.
Inquire if there are new and different assignments you can work on, if you can job craft passion projects or if there is an option for a lateral internal transfer, company-paid online learning courses and access to a mental health professional to talk things through. Find out if you can use all your PTO and vacation time to decompress. Ask if you could work remotely, fewer hours per day, a four-day workweek or other work styles that will relieve some pressure, stress and offer time to heal.
If the company and its representatives are not sympathetic to your plight, start searching for another job, consider a career pivot or reinvent yourself in a new profession. This may take some time. Get in touch with recruiters to find out if your skills are transferable to other types of roles. Compose a list of companies you’d like to work for and see if you know anyone who can make an introduction or recommendation on your behalf. Consider learning a new trade, going back to school to acquire skills needed to embark upon a new career or looking into doing something entrepreneurial.
Downshifting Is Different Than Quiet Quitting
TikTok and social media platforms cranked out content, coining terms such as “quiet quitting,” “acting your wage” and other variations of this theme. The undercurrent vibe of these trends is just to do enough work to get by without being chastised by the boss or fired. It’s a flawed strategy, as you’re not fooling anyone except yourself.
Managers know what you’re up to, but hold off firing the quiet quitter, as it’s challenging to search, recruit, onboard and retain workers. Also, there is always the fear of being accused of wrongful termination. You may hold onto your job; however, you’re not learning or growing. It’s just biding time, hoping something will magically change.
The Career Arc Of Excitement To Burnout
Most people feel that their careers should be linear. You hope to start your first job out of college with a top firm in the industry you studied for and then seek to climb the corporate ladder. The ambition is to manage a couple of workers and progress to running a group and then a division. There may be ambitions to rise to the upper-echelon, C-suite level.
Your vision and goals may not work out as planned. Recessions and black swan events, like the pandemic, Sept. 11 and the financial crisis, interrupt the career momentum of the best and brightest stars. Wall Street, media and crypto professionals have been laid off in the 2022 and 2023 white-collar recession. In the past, blue-collar workers often bore the brunt of downsizing when the economy contracted. Now, the college-educated office workers are getting the pink slips. People at marquee companies, such as Meta, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs, have been let go and the layoff announcements continue on a nearly weekly basis.
If you’ve been in the workplace for a few years, you’ve already noticed that getting ahead is not easy. You may be stuck with a difficult boss, backstabbing co-workers and a company that is not doing well financially. Despite all your hard work and efforts, you may have been overlooked for raises and promotions. After years of a grinding two-hour, round-trip commute to work, enduring office politics and being tortured by the boredom of back-to-back meetings and video calls, it’s natural to feel rundown.
It feels like you’ve hit a dead end. Perhaps, you’ve lost your vigor and passion for the job you used to love. Your spouse and friends point out that you come across a little angry and aggressive. The swagger and confidence that you used to have are lost. You find yourself daydreaming about what would have happened if you had chosen a different college, major, career or partner.
A new year is a perfect opportunity to evaluate what brings meaning to your life beyond your job. “Workaholism is baked into American culture, but it doesn’t have to be part of your life,” said New York Times columnist Roxane Gay. Even if you can’t make drastic changes, like switching careers or roles, a new mindset can be healthy and refreshing.
Source: Forbes
