Besides getting enough sleep, exercising and eating healthy, what are your tips for managing stress and anxiety as an analyst? I've met some bankers who are 3-4 years into their careers, and they are completely calm and able to detach themselves from the work completely it seems. Is it possible to learn this power??
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How do you get those types of relationships while working so many hours? Do you just try to go out to bars whenever you have the chance?
Hopefully you'll have a few girls from your college working in your same city, try getting involved with them preemptively. Other than that, just use dating apps and don't feel bad about shelling out the extra 10 bucks a month for the premium services.
What was the original comment here lol
This is just my opinion:
Don’t rely on alcohol, you don’t want to destroy your liver.
I would say most importantly learn how to stand your ground and distinguish work from leisure.
If you no longer want to work or are too tired, clock out. I know in IB it’s “not an option” and you have to work till 3:00 am everyday but personally I’m willing to sacrifice some of my bonus money for a better WLB. Make some time everyday for yourself!
Try out yoga (it’s not gay)
Smoke some weed (if legal in your state and allowed by your bank. Remember moderation is key, you don’t wanna end up like your high school friend who can’t function without smoking every 10 minutes)
Maintain your relationship with family and friends. I rely on them 90% of the time to help me with stressful times
And lastly,
Get a girlfriend homie, busting a nut always leads to mental clarity.
Hope this helps
Great advice. Also side note, south park is legendary. Randy on wheel of fortune might be one of the funniest TV bits of all time. If they tried to run that today though, they'd be screwed.
I think it is mindset. A few things that can make the job much better:
Some people think the tedious work isn’t that bad and actually enjoy being around the fast paced transactions. Also, there are many people who are just so grateful for the money that they think the job isn’t that bad. If you came from nothing and watched parents work multiple jobs and have stress from really struggling financially, getting a 6 figure + salary for sitting in PowerPoint and dealing with a few difficult managers and long hours really isn’t that bad.
If you work with people you like and who are reasonable, the job isn’t actually that bad. There is a thread that got posted the other day where someone said they did a whole M&A process and stayed who till 1am one night, while they also had a process where they didn’t have a free day for months. If you work with good people, the job isn’t quite the disaster people make it out to be.
The job and hours get easier each year. As an analyst you are the bottom of the totem pole, but eventually you gain respect and political power in the firm you work at, so you can push back, delegate more, etc. Much of the stress of the job comes from insecurity or feeling pressure to perform. If everyone at the firm knows you are good, it’s much less stressful. Also on this, with time you learn what to expect and the job gets more familiar. If you have done the job from analyst to VP, you can think about the fastest way to go each part of a process and have systems that make the whole process less chaotic.
It is a demanding job that requires a ton of hours. It’s very stressful/ near impossible to do the job and find a spouse or date. If you already have a loving partner, you don’t have as much uncertainty and you can just focus on like work and your spouse.
As people get older, the 4am bar runs naturally fade away and it frankly makes all employees much more productive and makes life less stressful since you are getting more sleep and just abusing your body less.
Allows people to relax/ decompress
This might be the biggest one, but I think out of undergrad people are still trying to determine the meaning in their life etc and are focused on things like being top bucket etc. Eventually, happy people recognize, a job is something that pays the bills that I don’t hate doing. Being top versus middle isn’t going to destroy your world and sometimes people are just more numb to bumps on their career path.
+SB fully agree.
I feel like a lot of people have shit attitudes about IB and it makes it so much worse. You need to adjust your expectations that you are on the clock 9-2am every day and all day Sunday. That way when work comes up it doesn’t bother you or seem annoying because you know you signed up for this. Expect bullshit comments, expect unnecessary late nights, expect Friday plans to get blown up sometimes. It sucks, but you willingly signed up for this, and if your expectation is the worst case, you’re pleased 75% of the time.
that said, remember WHY you are doing this. For me, it’s to get a good brand on my resume, get exposure to top clients in my industry, to learn, to build a 6-figure net worth and pay off my student loans, and to get to PE. I write it down and have it on my desk (at home) as motivation / affirmation.
The biggest thing for me is knowing that banking is finite. My time with asshole VPs and MDs, useless associates, psycho clients, shit hours, has an expiration date. and analyst 1s are already 25% of the way there, and I’m sure the summer bonus cycle will put some more wind in our sails.
Not to detract from what you've said, but PE isn't much better at all...will probably be taking a paycut there for the same or perhaps slightly better hours. If you change your mind to corp dev/strat or something, it's a massive paycut and even then you're still woring 40-50 hours which I frankly don't find sustainable for me even long term unless it's something I love to do. I'm not trying to be a pessimist but realistically I find it very hard to be excited about my future at all unless I take a leap of faith toward entrepreneur, crypto, or trading and all that. Am I wrong in thinking this way? Simply trying to be a realist here and I don't see bright path ahead down the traditional path that's been foolishly shoved down our throats for years.
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