The Power of Manual
Downshifting is switching to a lower gear while you drive. Your automatic car does it for you, but if you drive a manual, you can downshift to slow down but also do in preparation to accelerate quickly. The first car I was insured on was my parents' Datsun 240Z which had been totaled and rebuilt during my childhood. I remember having to put phone books in the bucket seat to see over the steering wheel and that I thought I was going to have to slam my left foot through the floorboard to engage the clutch. But the most vivid memory from those teenage driving years was the terror that rushed throughout my body anytime I knew I had to come to a complete stop, because it meant I had to start again from nothing.
Most of us don't drive manual cars very often these days, so the concept of downshifting and simply rolling through the stop signs on the country roads as I looked to make sure there wasn't an oncoming car or parked officer isn't easy to grasp, but as a result, the people who have defined career paths over the last several decades may have done us a disservice.
By choosing the analogy of a career as a highway, we have narrowly defined the direction and speed at which the path should be navigated. And if the driver wanted to slow down, the only option was an "off ramp." Unknowingly, we shaped the career development conversation into two options where you were either content on the highway driving 65 mph or if you wanted (or needed) to slow down, you were forced to exit the road. What we did was take away the appearance of the option to downshift.
Without noticing, we took away the manual shifting capability not only from our cars, but also our careers. The ability to control my gear has been the greatest advantage in my career. There were times (both before and after children) when I needed to downshift to slow down, but there have also been times that the act of downshifting and focusing on only the most important thing was the catalyst for the acceleration just around the corner. For working women (especially mothers), the pandemic and the years that have followed have resulted in more changes than can even be counted, but one of those changes is the way we view work.
As a society, we should take back the ability to up and down shift and as we redefine career success. By being in charge of our own speed and engagement we will get rid of the necessity of the “off ramp” and never have to panic about starting from scratch again.