COMMENT: "I left banking because I was exhausted. The alternative turned out to be worse"

Three years ago, I was fed up with finance. I'd worked in the industry for nine years - seven of them in client-facing roles, and I was exhausted. I was completely burned out and demotivated. As far as I was concerned, I wanted to leave the industry and never to come back.

This industry has always been demanding, but it seemed to have become even more so. I was expected to work late every night and was given no support from my manager. I'm a marathon runner, but I had no time to exercise. I was getting in at 7.30am and leaving at 7.30pm and when I mentioned the hours to my manager, he simply said, "Don't work so late." There was no real effort to reduce my workload, which had increased exponentially as the bank tried to do more with less. We were understaffed. Every day was pressured, and I could see no potential for promotion.

I left my job. I followed my passion. I qualified to become a personal trainer.

And it was worse.

When you don't have a full time job, you don't have the security of a regular income. This might sound obvious, but the benefits of that security only become apparent when it's gone. Suddenly, your income is erratic. Sometimes you have a lot of clients; sometimes there are none.

When you're self-employed, you're also on your own a lot. Instead of interacting with colleagues and clients daily, you're at home, waiting for client appointments. You don't even have the interaction that comes during a daily commute.

And while you might get plenty of physical exercise as a personal trainer, you don't use your brain. I missed the technical and problem-solving aspects of my finance job.

After three years out of the market, I'm therefore back. I was headhunted by a former colleague into a job that's extremely similar to my old one. 

In some ways, nothing has changed. There's still a lot of work to do. It's as if I've never been gone.

However, I'm not about to burn out again. These days, I have a rule that I won't leave any later than 6pm and that I won't eat lunch at my desk. I always have at least 30 minutes out at lunchtime and I see my banking job in a more relaxed way. I know there's no point in getting stressed: at the end of the day, it's only work.

James Lee is a pseudonym of a client relations professional at a European bank.