Joined a BB as an IB analyst about 7-8 months ago, and my anxiety has severely skyrocketed since then.
I now face heavy anxiety anytime I hear my email notification go off and I dread the sight of getting put on another project. My heart races every morning when I wake up at the prospect of getting yelled at / doing something wrong / having to pull an all-nighter.
Is / was anyone else in the same boat? Any advice? Any guidance would help.
| +395 | Evercore Intern Seizure | 61 | 3h |
| +97 | UBS IB Americas has failed, now behind Santander and Stiffel | 27 | 46m |
| +78 | JPM M&A is Gone??? Purely Coverage Banking??? | 37 | 1h |
| +60 | How do I understand vs. just memorizing? | 11 | 3h |
| +48 | Losing my personality in Banking | 9 | 1d |
| +45 | The good and bad with Wells Fargo | 12 | 2h |
| +42 | Associate & Above IB exits | 18 | 5h |
| +35 | Sent my Claude prompt to 200+ Teams chat. MD wants to see me Monday. | 18 | 7h |
| +33 | Incoming IB Analyst: Best Ways to Prepare? | 13 | 2h |
| +31 | Tech to IB Pivot | 20 | 16h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Damn dude. It's almost as if I wrote this lol. I have been struggling with the same. It's getting better though. I'd be very down to connect if you're open to that.
Are you in a culturally harsh group? Maybe you can try to lateral or transfer groups.
Apart from that I would recommend looking into Stoicism and applying stoic ways of thinking to your day-to-day life. Most people don’t enjoy inflicting mental pain on others; they just might be even more stressed than you are. Realizing this at least helps you humanize and empathize with the people that are making you feel anxious/stressed.
I would also recommend eating as healthy as you can and exercising as much as possible. If none if this solves your problem I would maybe consult a mental health professional.
Had similar anxiety issues when I started out and two things that some fellow analysts / associates taught me which really helped are:
1. Focus just on the tasks currently at hand, don't overthink into the medium term about how much work a project is going be, will there be all nighters, fire drills, unreasonable requests, etc. Just focus on what you need to do at the moment
2. Just try to do the best you can and don't worry about factors you can't control. Hypothetically speaking, even if somehow you tried your best, underperformed and got laid off, you can easily find another job. Don't take the job so seriously, probably 95% of analysts and associates will be exiting in 2-3 years and once you leave, you will realize that all the anxiety and stress during IB was meaningless
Really strong advice here. This is it.
Staying present and not looking too far into the future. This is easier said then done, and I definitely wasn't able to take my own advice, but I think it's critically important for junior banker sanity.
I'd destroy myself mentally when we got a new deal signed up because I'd be thinking about all the work that needs to get done. On week 1, when I'd be putting together the WGL, KYC checks, and setting up deal team distributions I'd be dreading the CIP iterations, buyer outreach, dataroom, DD, deal docs, etc. Obviously those things are all coming down the line, but it serves no practical purpose to dwell on future work to the extent that you're depressing yourself. It is just too overwhelming.
The best people I worked with were always (seemingly) able to stay present and not get caught up with future obligations. Focusing on daily and maybe weekly tasks/milestones is extremely important.
Also first yr analyst here, had anxiety for a while. But I just stopped giving such a big fuck about all the work and now just try my best to finish my tasks the best I can.
Tbh banks are understaffed and they won't fire us analysts anyways so that's how I saw it. I know "not giving a fuck" is easier said than done but hope this helps
$5-10k in your bonus is not worth a severe decline in your mental health.
Was in the same boat - after 8 months when I was feeling more confident in my abilities and was familiar with how things are run, it did get better. But it never truly went away and I realized that I couldn't live that anxiety so I ended up leaving after the first year. I think it's all about a person's personality - I am a planner and control freak by nature, and the pressure / ambiguity with little to no guidance was so different from how I had operated growing up that I realized this kind of environment wasn't for me. Maybe some people on this forum would call me a soft pussy, but I'd rather be a soft pussy and wake up every day feeling thankful for life and all it brings, rather than staring at a computer screen at 5am wishing I had picked a different career.
You’re the most junior and worst-paid member of your team. I know this is easier said than done, but you’ve got to stop caring as much. Ultimately it’s all someone else’s problem
Dont worry, you'd stop giving a fuck after a while.
Internal message read and not reply straight away.
Jump on Zoom a few mins late.
Create fake items on outlook calendar so your email flags busy.
Start taking ashwaganda
Not going to say I regret it per se, as my life is pretty good and I'm happy and financially secure, but I do sometimes wonder if I should have done something a bit more "tangible". Like my friend is an OBGYN and delivered some babies today... I spent half the day tying out numbers in excel and the other half on a stream of zooms. Definitely some grass is greener here as I've expressed this to him and his response was basically "wanna trade lives? I have six figures in student loans".
IB certainly opens doors - sometimes I just wonder if those doors are the ones I wanted.