How to Downshift

A path for high achievers to find a new way of being

Dear high achiever,

I want you to know something. Something I wish someone told me when I was in your running shoes.

You don’t have to live this way. There is a different way of being.

There’s a world where you can be calm, by default.

You can feel like you’re enough, without needing to prove it.

You can have a sense of openness and lightness in each day of your life.

I know I know. That sounds dumb and unrealistic. I thought the same thing. The truth is people DID tell me this. There were the Instagurus, the Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle books, the friend who left the grind years ago and never looked back. Intellectually, I could see that it was possible. In practice, I couldn’t get close enough to touch it.

It’s impossible to notice the peaceful swaying of the trees while you’re speeding by on the freeway. To truly experience it, you have to stop.

For 15 years, there was no stopping me.

I had goals to achieve. I had to prove to myself that I was enough. I moved to SF (a.k.a. highperformerville), worked at the fastest-paced startups, started three companies, joined two accelerators, grew a substantial social media following, ran a podcast, wrote a book, built a massive network… foot on the gas… go go go. There’s no time to waste! I have one life to live! One chance to prove myself!

Stop? Stop?! What would that even look like? Shutting down my company? Making no money? Letting my reputation wither? All my hard work going down the drain? I’m not even wealthy yet! Would my successful friends quit? Would Steve Jobs quit? Would Michael Jordan quit?!¹

Nope. Suck it up. Push through. Quitting was not an option…

Until it was the only option.

When I finally stepped down from my company I felt like an empty shell. I didn’t know what was important to me anymore. I forgot how to find joy in my work. I had no energy left.

I didn’t feel burned out per se. I’ve been burned out before, usually from overworking and overwhelming myself. At this point in my career, I had gotten my workload under control. I had my first kid, which forced me to set more clear boundaries. I was still running the community but we had been acquired three years prior, so I didn’t have the pressure of being CEO on my shoulders. I was leading a team and still executing at a high level.

So no, I wasn’t burned out. What I felt was hollowed out. Empty. Lost within. Something had to change. I put in my notice and stepped off the ledge into the abyss.

I spent the next two years floating. Slowly, painfully, alone, I peeled back the layers of my high achiever identity, letting them float off into space, and started to tune more deeply into who I am.

What I was doing, I have now learned, was “downshifting”.

You know when you hear a word that perfectly explains a concept you’re very familiar with but didn’t have a name for? That’s called a wordgasm (it’s not…I just made that up to convey the point). I had a wordgasm when I heard “downshift” for the first time from my friend

Steven Schlafman

.

Downshifting is the process a high achiever goes through when stepping off the treadmill. It’s their journey into a new version of life where achievement is no longer their north star (at least not the version of achievement they’ve known).

We high achievers were never taught how to downshift. Our entire life has been a long thread of upshifting. Get to the next level. More knowledge, more experience, more reputation, more acumen, more success, more wealth, more growth… more, more, more…

Can you think of a single time in your childhood or career when someone said, “hey pal, maybe do less with your life”?

I can’t. I’ve been told to take a break… to take a vacation… to stop working for the day… momentary moments of calm and peace just so I could jump right back onto the treadmill when I return.

No one ever asked the question, “What if you just stopped? Like, indefinitely stopped?”

But that’s what I did. I would have had the option to take a paid sabbatical. But I’d be committing to returning to work. The treadmill would keep speeding along in the background, just waiting for me to jump back on.

It was important to me that nothing was waiting for me on the other side of my sabbatical. I didn’t know how long it would end up being. I sensed that there was a new shore waiting for me out there, and that I had to completely lose sight of the shore I was leaving if I was going to find it.

In his book “Transitions”, William Bridges describes the first stage of transitions as an “ending”. Your current stage has to end so that you can enter the “neutral zone”, or what I call “the abyss”. Only after floating in the abyss for some time can you enter the third stage of “new beginnings”.

We’re never taught how to end a version of our life or how to sit uncomfortably in the abyss.

Here are a few things I learned:

• The downshift process isn’t linear. Every time I thought I had let things “end” I learned that there were more layers to peel away. I’d enter “new beginning mode” and be swept back into the neutral zone over and over again. I’m currently coming out of round four (or five or six?) of the abyss.

• Downshifting doesn’t mean you never upshift again. Unless you adopt a monastic lifestyle, it’s unrealistic to avoid upshifting entirely. That said, after downshifting, the next time you upshift you’ll do so with deeper calm, alignment, and inner knowing. In fact, the whole purpose of downshifting may be to help you upshift in a more healthy and effective way in your next chapter.

• Downshifting isn’t a cost, it’s an investment. I was afraid of not making money and burning our savings so Alison and I sat down and looked at our finances in detail. We calculated exactly how much of our savings we’d cut into for us to take this time (Alison also took a year off from teaching). A friend gave me the sage wisdom to reframe it as an investment in myself, my family, and my relationships, rather than a cost. It’s the best investment I’ve ever made.

• Downshifting allows you to explore the source of your high-achieving tendencies. Why do you need to achieve to feel like you’re enough? Where did that belief come from? As you become more aware of these stories, you can slowly start to shift them (I highly recommend working with a therapist, IFS coach, and/or meditation as you go through this journey). Work will feel different when you shift from seeking enoughness through work to a place where you already believe that you are enough. You start to choose work that you genuinely enjoy. I’m finding joy in my work today that I’ve never known before.

• Downshifting can be an extremely lonely process because it’s likely that the people in your life have also been in hustle mode. Stepping off the treadmill can feel like leaving your community. When all your friends are playing the game, leaving the game can feel like a betrayal. My isolation was also deepened by a difficult public conflict and feeling generally exhausted by online communities. Finding others who are downshifting, and those who have previously downshifted, makes the journey more joyful and less lonely. This took me a long time to figure out. I spent a long time alone in the abyss.

• If you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do next, you’re not downshifting, you’re trying to jump straight into your next upshift. I made this mistake. It’s natural. It will take time for your high achiever tendencies to quiet down (this is part of the ending phase). Not knowing what to do next will feel deeply uncomfortable. Sit with that discomfort, it has a great deal to teach you.

There’s a lot more I can say about downshifting but I hope this essay gives you a glimpse into what’s possible. Perhaps the door has opened, ever so slightly, to your exploration of a new state of work, of living, of being.

Steve Schlafman is kicking off the very first “Downshift” decelerator cohort with a small group of high achievers ready to step off the ledge into the abyss (or who are already floating). I played a small role in supporting Steve as he shaped this program. It’s been an absolute delight. This program is everything I wish I had when I stepped down from my company. I’ll be at the in-person retreat and supporting throughout the program. Applications are due Monday! Maybe I’ll see you there.

Your turn:

1. Have you ever downshifted? What did you learn?

2. Have you ever felt “hollowed out”? Are you feeling like that now? Want to talk about it?

3. What stories are preventing you from downshifting?

4. Did you have a wordgasm while reading this? Be honest…

5. What questions do you have for other readers in the comments?

1. Michael Jordan actually DID quit in 1993 after winning three straight titles, shocking the basketball world (most epic downshift ever?). He returned two years later in 1995. Steve Jobs didn’t quit, but he was fired from Apple in 1985, which was a sort of “forced downshift”. He returned two years later in 1997.