If I could sit across the table from the younger version of myself—the law student who thought she had her career mapped out—I wonder what I would say.
Would I tell her which opportunities to take?
Which decisions to avoid?
Which people to listen to?
Perhaps.
But I think I would mostly tell her to stop worrying so much about getting everything right.
Because some of the most important lessons in my career did not come from the decisions that went perfectly.
They came from the decisions I questioned later.
The opportunities I did not get.
The paths I did not expect to take.
The moments when I compared myself to everyone around me.
And eventually, the realisation that a career is not a five-year plan that either succeeds or fails.
It is something you keep building.
If I could go back, these are the eight things I would tell myself.
- You Do Not Have to Figure Out Your Entire Career in Law School
I remember how much pressure there was to have an answer.
Litigation or corporate law?
Law firm or in-house?
India or abroad?
Specialise or remain general?
Everyone seemed to be making decisions that felt permanent.
So I assumed I had to make mine too.
What I did not understand was that choosing a direction is not the same as choosing a destination.
Your first job does not have to define your entire career.
The first area of law you work in does not have to become the only thing you ever do.
And the plan you create at twenty-one does not have to survive unchanged at thirty.
I wish I had understood earlier that careers are allowed to evolve.
You can change your mind.
You can discover something new.
You can take a detour.
You can start again.
Changing direction does not mean you failed to plan.
Sometimes it means you learned enough to make a better decision.
- Stop Measuring Your Career Against Someone Else’s Timeline
This one took me much longer to learn.
There will always be someone ahead of you.
Someone who gets the internship you wanted.
Someone who joins the firm you admired.
Someone who gets promoted faster.
Someone who builds a successful practice.
Someone who publishes more.
Someone who appears to have figured everything out.
For a long time, I allowed other people’s milestones to become a measurement of my own progress.
It created a constant feeling of being behind.
But eventually I realised that I was comparing my entire reality with someone else’s highlights.
I could see their designation.
I could not see their doubts.
I could see their promotion.
I could not see what they sacrificed for it.
I could see their success.
I could not see whether they were actually happy with the path they had chosen.
I would tell my younger self:
Your career is not late because someone else’s career moved faster.
There is no universal deadline for becoming successful.
- Learn to Say No Earlier
I used to think saying yes was how you demonstrated commitment.
Yes to the additional task.
Yes to the impossible deadline.
Yes to the meeting.
Yes to work that was outside the original scope.
Yes, even when I knew I did not realistically have the capacity.
I wanted to be dependable.
But there is a difference between being dependable and being permanently available.
Over time, I learned that every yes has a cost.
It costs time.
Attention.
Energy.
Sometimes it takes time away from work that actually matters.
I wish I had learned earlier that saying no does not necessarily make you difficult.
A thoughtful no can be professional.
“I won’t be able to do this properly within that timeline.”
“I don’t think this approach is advisable.”
“I don’t have the capacity to take this on right now.”
These are not signs of weakness.
They are signs that you understand your responsibilities.
- Not Every Rejection Is a Verdict on Your Ability
There have been opportunities I genuinely wanted and did not get.
And like most people, my first instinct was to make the rejection personal.
Maybe I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe someone else had something I didn’t.
Maybe I had made the wrong choices.
But rejection is rarely a complete assessment of your professional worth.
Sometimes the timing is wrong.
Sometimes the organisation wants something different.
Sometimes another candidate is simply a better fit for that particular opportunity.
And sometimes there is a lesson to learn.
The important thing is not to confuse “I did not get this opportunity” with “I am not capable of succeeding.”
Those are two completely different statements.
I would tell my younger self to let rejection hurt—but not to let it define her.
- Do Not Underestimate Relationships
Early in my career, I thought networking was about meeting important people.
I was wrong.
The most valuable professional relationships are rarely created through a calculated exchange.
They develop slowly.
A colleague you helped.
A senior who believed in you.
A professional you met at an event and stayed in touch with.
Someone whose work you admired.
A former colleague who remembered you years later.
A client who trusted you.
I have learned that careers are built not only through qualifications and experience but also through trust.
You never know which conversation will become a long-term professional relationship.
So I would tell my younger self:
Do good work, but do not disappear behind it.
Be curious.
Stay in touch.
Help people when you can.
Build relationships before you need them.
- Your Work Matters More Than Your Fear of Being Seen
For a long time, I believed that if I simply did good work, people would eventually notice.
There is truth in that.
But there is also a missing piece.
People cannot always recognise expertise they never encounter.
I gradually began to understand the importance of writing, sharing ideas, participating in professional conversations and developing a visible professional identity.
Not because I wanted to become an influencer.
But because I wanted people to know what I actually cared about and what I could contribute.
Personal branding, I have realised, does not have to mean talking about yourself constantly.
It can simply mean making your expertise discoverable.
I would tell my younger self:
Do not confuse humility with invisibility.
You are allowed to talk about your work.
You are allowed to share what you have learned.
You are allowed to have a professional voice.
- A Career Break Does Not Erase Your Experience
This is perhaps the advice I would have needed most.
Life does not always follow the professional timeline you imagined.
There may be pauses.
Responsibilities.
Unexpected circumstances.
Changes in direction.
And when you return, it can feel as though everyone else has moved ahead while you stood still.
I know how easy it is to look at a gap and see everything you think you lost.
But a career break does not erase the years that came before it.
It does not erase your education.
Your skills.
Your judgment.
Your experiences.
And it certainly does not erase your potential.
You may need to relearn.
You may need to rebuild confidence.
You may have to begin differently.
But beginning again is not the same as beginning from zero.
I would tell my younger self to remember that.
- Do Not Build a Career You Are Afraid to Change
This might be the most important lesson of all.
There is a strange pressure in professional life to stay consistent.
Once you choose something, you are expected to stick with it.
Once you build expertise in one area, changing direction can feel like throwing away everything you have built.
But careers are not meant to be monuments.
They are meant to evolve.
There may come a point when the thing you once wanted is no longer what you want.
That does not make your earlier effort meaningless.
It simply means you have changed.
I would tell my younger self:
Do not stay somewhere simply because you have already spent years getting there.
Experience is never wasted.
Even when you change direction, you carry something with you.
Skills.
Relationships.
Perspective.
Judgment.
Confidence.
Stories.
Those things travel with you.
And Finally, I Would Tell Her This…
You are going to spend far too much time worrying that you are behind.
You are going to think you should have achieved more by now.
You are going to question some of your decisions.
You are going to experience rejection.
You are going to have opportunities that do not work out.
You are going to change your mind.
And there will probably be moments when you wonder whether you have completely lost your way.
You haven’t.
You are simply learning that careers are rarely as predictable as they look from the outside.
The five-year plan you create today will probably change.
And that is okay.
The person you become professionally will be shaped not only by the opportunities you deliberately pursue, but also by the setbacks you never expected, the people you meet, the mistakes you make and the doors that open when you least expect them.
So if I could give my younger self eight pieces of career advice, perhaps the real message behind all eight would be the same:
Stop trying so hard to predict the exact shape of your career.
Build your skills.
Do good work.
Build relationships.
Stay curious.
Take opportunities.
Learn from rejection.
Protect your time.
And when life takes you somewhere you did not plan to go, don’t automatically assume you have gone off track.
Sometimes the detour is where you discover the career you were actually meant to build.
And if I have learned anything from my own journey, it is this:
The goal was never to become the lawyer I imagined at twenty-one.
The goal was to keep becoming a better version of the lawyer—and the professional—I am today.
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