Going to no work/life balance?

Hey everyone. I've been following this site for a couple of years now and always found it to be pretty entertaining and informative. This is my first time posting a question so here we go.

About me: I came out of college and started working in back office operations. After just a little over five years and a couple of promotions, I got sick of the crap pay and the unsatisfying work and started looking for more analytical work. I took the CFA Level 1 and got my foot into the door of a credit rating agency (Fitch/Moody/S&P). I like the work I'm doing now, but feel like I could take my career up another notch and make more money. I still like the sell side credit research aspect, but think it could be more lucrative going into sell side equity research at a bank or even buy side for an asset manager. I'm currently waiting on Level 3 results that are due to come out in a month.

I think I've gotten too used to the easy work life balance that I had in the two positions I've worked in post undergrad. Has anyone ever had some worries about not being able to transition over from 40-50 hours per week max to something that demands 70-80 hours? I think mental and physical health is really important to me and I don't think I'm young enough to keep up with the demands of something like IB.

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I switched from a less demanding job to a more demanding one. First off, ER hasn't been, at least for me, 70-80 hour weeks. It's usually 11-12 hour days for a 55-60 hour week. I've hit 70-80 maybe a couple of times and its entirely different to 60.

60 hour weeks aren't too bad, things feel a little compressed in the evening but I still workout and get dinner with friends every so often. There wasn't much of an adjustment period honestly.

 
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