The Corporate Lifestyle: it has a lot to offer but it comes at a high price
Not so long ago you secured a highly coveted corporate job in New York City. You worked hard to get here. Distinguishing yourself in college, piled on debt for an elite graduate degree, volunteered your services in unpaid internships. You made it through a very competitive and selective process and prevailed.
Fast forward a few years, you have become used to the compensation, your expenses grew with your income and your student debt swallowed up any surplus. The long hours, competitive work environment and unrelenting performance expectations have cooled off your enchantment with big corporate America. At this point new (sometimes scary) questions may enter your mind: Will I be able to continue to work in such a high pressure environment? How will it affect my relationships in the long run? If colleagues in senior positions hardly ever see their children, should I even have kids?
At the same time the high powered transactional nature of your profession fills you with energy and adrenaline, your achievements and expertise are recognized by others and you finally feel financially secure. Maybe you should stick it out for longer, achieve financial independence, work harder, climb higher.
This ambivalent stance is very common for high achieving professionals in New York City. If it remains unaddressed it can lead to a variety of secondary stressors, such as the fear of missing out on “real life” or the anxiety that the dream of finding “true love” or starting a family is fading away. In turn, these anxieties accelerate burnout symptoms, chronic insomnia, panic attacks and long lasting anxiety symptomatology. From a clinical perspective, it is very important to work through these ambivalent feelings, listen to one's own contradictory longings and indulge a variety of hypotheticals in a life that can still be lived to the fullest.
The clinicians at Vienna Praxis are experts at helping high powered professionals address their inner struggle and help them find renewed strength to make more confident decisions in life. If you are interested in a 15 minute free consultation to see if this would be a good match for you, please contact us.