3: On burnout and finding balance in the early stages of working life - Tahmid’s Story

Follow-up interview with Tahmid Chowdhury, who was first featured on the blog ‘A Fine Balance’ in October 2020: https://a-fine-balance.com/2020/10/02/work-life-balance-profile-4-tahmid-chowdhury/. Early in his career, Tahmid realised that he was on the verge of ‘burning out’ and he took some drastic measures to change his lifestyle and mindset to improve his situation. Burnout is something that has come up again and again in the interviews I conduct for my blog and is usually an indicator of a skewed balance between the various aspects of life and work at any given time. I was curious to understand Tahmid’s experience, not just what “burnout” felt like for him, but what he did to overcome it and what measures he takes now to avoid getting back to that point. I hope that listeners find his reflections and insights helpful. Tahmid is also one of the younger subjects of my blog, so we spoke at length about finding balance in the early stages of working life, including some of the challenges of working with seniors, and with colleagues who have caring responsibilities. Another focus of our discussion (though admittedly we did go off on many tangents!) was on the impact that coming from an ethnic minority background in the UK had on Tahmid's work:life balance. Underpinning our discussion was the fact that Tahmid is the first (and only) interviewee that I've featured on my blog that has refused to put a figure on his work:life ratio. I hope you enjoy the episode and if you do, please rate, review or subscribe – apparently it helps let others know about it too. For updates, follow @afinebalance_blog on Facebook or Instagram, or sign up at www.a-fine-balance.com to receive alerts directly to your inbox. In the meantime, happy listening!