Today we’d like to introduce you to Mehvish Anwar.
Hi Mehvish, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi – yup so I was born and raised in Auburn, Alabama. My parents migrated from Pakistan to the states in the 90s so we grew up as a tight nit family. After graduating Auburn High School, I studied Industrial Engineering with a minor in Supply Chain Management at Auburn University where I graduated in 2017. I then moved to Washington D.C., where I worked as a government contractor for about three years including working for the United States Census during the 2020 Census. During the pandemic, I temporarily came down to Alabama to stay with family for a while, in which I decided to move to Atlanta to be closer to home in 2021. Once moving to Atlanta, I transferred into a new role as a tech management consultant for a Big 4 Consulting firm and have been working there for ongoing two years entering into my 3rd with the firm.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think any pathway in life is necessarily smooth, lol. There have been multiple obstacles whether it is work challenges such as being a WOC in a STEM field and the types of discrimination and issues you may specifically face on a day-to-day basis.
Or…
Whether there were personal challenges I had to navigate while seemingly trying to hold it all together from a work perspective it all depends on which facet we want to discuss I guess. But we can provide one example of each for more insight.
Work-wise – I constantly dealt with imposter syndrome and had to navigate coping through those moments, where I needed to build that additional confidence and assertiveness in why I deserved to be here. Being a woman in a male-dominated field, you’re constantly questioned and have to perform above and beyond for regular recognition. I constantly critiqued myself, but as I realized my quality of work, my achievements, and what my superiors would compliment me on, I realized so much of it has been fabricated and engrained from society vs. actuality.
Personal life – I dealt with two pretty heavy breakups navigating out of college into my career as well as during transitioning roles within my career. I don’t think we talk enough about our personal issues and how they impact us collectively as we try to separate our professional lives with our personal ones when they are very much intertwined. I had to find healthy coping mechanisms while also being true and graceful to myself if I was either slacking or not fully able to perform certain weeks over others.
I think the best decompressing mechanisms and coping management for me which is what has led me to my lifestyle now is incorporating solid health/wellness attributes to your daily lifestyle to maintain stress and hormone levels. Overall, health is wealth so in order for us to triumph over any struggle, we need to be healthy first.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
While for the longest, my greatest achievement in what I thought represented me previously was my technical engineering background and being able to achieve the level of “success” I have now, which I do think for me represents hard work embedded, however having matured more and gaining some more insight and wisdom, I feel that what I am NOW additionally most proud of, is my health and wellness journey. The lifestyle I have created in the past two years that has made me the most confident version of myself now and has exposed a level of commitment and discipline I wasn’t even sure I had in me or was capable of.
While dealing with stressors whether work-related or challenges within my personal life, I realized that what I was previously doing to cope had negative effects in my mental, emotional, and physical well-being and was not sustainable for the lifestyle I wanted and expected in the long term.
It started off with recognizing my habits, holding myself accountable to realizing that I am 100% the main factor to my own happiness, starting off with changing small habits such as making my bed, cleaning my diet, waking up earlier, hiring a trainer.. and so forth. That has been probably the most rewarding part of my life in the past couple of years.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Any way you can improve or better yourself to lead to a sustainable/content lifestyle – this can be in many aspects such as:
– Embarking on higher education – increasing/expanding your knowledge
– Focusing on health improvements
– Improving family relationships or friendships
– Being more kind, boosting/increasing your morale
– Finding a more passionate career choice
– Focusing on your hobbies more
– Self-care
I think we all get wrapped up in this “image” society portrays as success whether it is a flashy lifestyle or fame etc. which can yes, equate to success subjectively, however in my personal opinion, improving oneself is the most successful thing one can do.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/_mehvvv/?hl=en
