In a revealing account of career burnout across two high-pressure fields, former professional tennis player and investment banker Vitoria Okuyama shares her journey from international sports to corporate finance and eventual departure from both worlds. Okuyama reached the pinnacle of junior tennis, ranking 118th globally in under-18 competitions and competing in the US Open, using the sport as her ticket to education and financial independence through a scholarship at College of William & Mary. However, the constant travel, six-hour daily training sessions, and pre-match anxiety led to her first burnout at just 16 years old. Similarly, her transition to investment banking at Citi brought relentless 10am-4am workdays that triggered panic attacks and daily crying spells within nine months, demonstrating how both elite athletic and financial careers demanded unsustainable personal sacrifices despite outward success.
The parallel burnout experiences forced Okuyama to confront fundamental questions about purpose and personal limits. While tennis provided clear physical boundaries, investment banking’s psychological demands proved more insidious, with her „best having no limit” mentality leading to complete emotional exhaustion. Her breaking point came in October 2024 when she spontaneously broke down at the gym, mirroring her teenage tennis burnout experience. This prompted a 13-week leave of absence including an ayahuasca retreat in Peru, where she began reconnecting with herself after years of numbing burnout symptoms. The recovery process revealed that continuing with reduced workload wasn’t sufficient – complete separation from the stressful environment was necessary for genuine healing.
Okuyama’s eventual departure from Citi in June 2025, followed by marriage that resolved her visa concerns, marked a transformative full-circle moment. Now 26, she reflects gratefully on the financial stability and self-knowledge gained from both careers, while embracing the freedom to explore work that genuinely excites her. Her current part-time startup role and fellowship with tech community Fibe represent a conscious shift toward following curiosity rather than external expectations. Okuyama’s story serves as a powerful reminder that recognizing when to walk away from prestigious but unsustainable paths can be the wisest career move, and that true recovery from burnout requires complete disconnection from the systems that caused it.
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