Severe burnout from two and a half years of investment banking then two and a half years at Ares. How do I start caring about literally anything again?

Burnout is TOUGH. MBA is a solid idea for you and would give you a break to think about what's next. Really though, MBA or no MBA, I recommend getting into something with more WLB. If you go MBA -> PE you will very likely find yourself in the same situation. If I were you I'd get a corp dev role, negotiate a long break in between jobs (like 4+ months delayed start date) and try to completely forget about work in that time. When you start back up, enforce good WLB habits - i.e.

Thank you so much this is validating and super helpful. It’s almost as if im so burnt out I can’t parse through whether or not I love what I’ve been doing, I just need a major break or if I need to pivot careers entirely to a better WLB…Hopefully I will eventually catch a glimpse/feel like the eager, sharp, curious and driven analyst I was first starting out and even really as an associate preCOVID. Thanks again — I’m just focusing on relearning healthy habits and taking days slowly, setting boundaries and forcing breaks throughout the day and especially on weekends

It's good you recognize the challenge in making a rational decision right now. I think that's probably the toughest part of burn out - when you're in it, you feel like you need to escape immediately, but you're not rational enough to actually make a decision you can trust. When in that mental place a lot of people want to "burn it all down" and do things like quit abruptly, behave unprofessionally on their way out, run to jobs they don't actually want to do deep down, or make other suboptimal decisions. I've seen all of these happen and some of them had real lasting career damages.

Anyone want to share success stories for comeback from severe burnout early in career?

VP in PE - LBOs

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I know many who went to b school exclusively for this reason. Almost all came back to PE. Several then burnt out again ~2 years later so I'm not sure it's always the panacea. People need breaks more periodically than that, which is hard in our industry, especially when carry kicks in so you can't really hop around easily and negotiate a break in between. I hope that sabbaticals become more normal in the industry, but it's hard to imagine that happening on the competitive road to partner. But I have seen that too. In my experience, the burnout comes in waves and if you can "recommit" for a period of time, it can help you push through for the short term until you get yourself back. Other than that, the usual best practices of making sure you're making time for yourself with working out, non-work socializing, no or at least less drugs/alcohol, sleeping as much as you can, therapy. This may all feel unnatural after working so hard and being intentional about it will feel like you're actually adding more work to your plate, because you are, but it does help. Good luck. If it helps to hear, this feeling is pretty widespread everywhere right now.

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Anyone want to share success stories for comeback from severe burnout early in career?

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