Life doesn’t come with spellcheck. You can’t click “track changes” on your past or re-write the version of yourself you wish you had been. It’s more like a stream of consciousness. You just keep typing. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s messy, sometimes the errors glare at you in hindsight. This is how we become. We stumble, regret, learn and grow into who we’re still becoming.
The Two Ways We Write Our Lives
Sometimes becoming who you want to be is intentional. You get an idea, you find people who’ve trodden that road before you, you learn from their playbook, you get mentored and you make plans.
Other times, there are no plans. Only situations you find yourself in and choices. Some are deliberate, some are imposed and some don’t even feel like choices at all. Each one leads you down a road you never imagined you’d take.
If you’ve ever sat in a job interview and been asked to explain your career, you’ll know the feeling. Sometimes your story comes out garbled, even to your own ears. Other times, with peace and perspective, the same story reads as resilience. The same events can make you look like a hot mess or someone destined for bigger things.
My First Interview
At 17, I found myself in the library of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. I’d just started medical school. Ireland was new, medicine was new and the whole experience felt surreal. My mother had nudged me there because despite I’d always done well at school I had no clear vision for myself.
It was four years into university before I felt certain that I was meant to be a doctor. I loved caring for people, counselling them and being part of their decisions. For a while, I thought plastic surgery might be my path. I spent summers in Oman at Khoula Hospital, dressing wounds, assessing burns and observing cleft lip and palate repairs. I even had the chance to study plastics in Germany. But when the time came, I realised I didn’t want it enough to sacrifice everything else that mattered to me — my life in Dublin, my relationships, my sense of home.
So the question became: if not surgery, then what?
Three years later, I had done general surgery, cardiology, respiratory medicine, rheumatology, medicine for the elderly and emergency medicine and I still wasn’t sure what specialty it was going to be. I was a good doctor. My patients mattered to me, my work was solid, but I hadn’t yet found the specialty that truly fit. Each rotation gave me skills and confidence, but no clear “yes.” When it came to registrar interviews, that uncertainty showed. I could do the work but I couldn’t articulate where I wanted to build my career.
I interviewed for a teaching position. I was an enthusiastic teacher and I prepared well, but I wasn’t successful. I interviewed for medicine for the elderly registrar posts. Again I wasn’t successful. It became clear that I would need another year of work, more exams and another cycle of applications but I realised even then, my specialty path might depend more on who would take me than on what I truly wanted.
That wasn’t inspiring. I was directionless again.
At that point, my father suggested I try a role in industry.
Finding My Place in Pharma
In 2007, I joined a pharmaceutical company that had just been acquired. Everything was in flux. People leaving, structures changing and I was on probation, sent wherever help was needed.
First, I covered a maternity leave in Exports. Next I evaluated new products for the Irish market and drafted business plans. A Senior Buyer resigned overnight so I stepped into procurement and that became my home for the next two years.
Even then, I couldn’t help but use my medical background. Alongside the Supply Chain role, I helped train Sales teams for product launches, I worked with Regulatory to re-write patient information leaflets in plain language. It was during this time, I found an unexpected sense of purpose: if I could source active ingredients and excipients at lower costs than our competitors, our tender prices would drop. Patients would benefit.
My life had moved out of clinical medicine, but I was still connected to patients, just in a different way.
During this time, my husband stayed on the conventional path. He remained in hospital medicine, working toward his radiology specialty. We had our first child while I was in pharma and it seemed that Pharmaceutical Medicine was becoming my specialty too.
REGRETS AND TURNING POINTS
Two years after my daughter’s birth, I attempted to return to work. I decided pharma was my sector, but I wanted to pivot from Supply Chain into Medical Affairs. I registered with recruitment agencies and went to interview after interview.
I wasn’t successful.
Part of it was lack of preparation: I didn’t know about competency-based interviews, the STAR technique, the need to translate my story into a neat narrative but part of it was deeper. I couldn’t make sense of my own life and it showed.
When one interviewer asked, “So what have you been doing for the past year?” I thought of the hospital visits, the clinics, the stress, the responsibility. What came out instead was: “Nothing. I’ve been up to nothing at all.”
That answer crystallised my humiliation.
The First Career Break
Two years after my daughter’s birth, I attempted to return to work. I decided pharma was my sector, but I wanted to pivot from Supply Chain into Medical Affairs. I registered with recruitment agencies and went to interview after interview.
I wasn’t successful.
Part of it was lack of preparation: I didn’t know about competency-based interviews, the STAR technique, the need to translate my story into a neat narrative but part of it was deeper. I couldn’t make sense of my own life and it showed.
When one interviewer asked, “So what have you been doing for the past year?” I thought of the hospital visits, the clinics, the stress, the responsibility. What came out instead was: “Nothing. I’ve been up to nothing at all.”
That answer crystallised my humiliation.
Then came a turning point: a recruiter who believed in me. He coached me for interviews, insisted on feedback even when I was unsuccessful and helped me rebuild my confidence. One medical director’s feedback guided me back to university, where I completed an MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine.
A year later, I landed my first Medical Advisor role in a top 10 pharma company. This time, I felt at home. I became a subject matter expert, worked across functions, interpreted data and supported launches. For the first time since leaving hospital medicine, my career story felt coherent. I was a doctor again, in a different way. I blossomed.
RELOCATION, AGAIN
Then came another move. My husband had completed his training and was embarking on fellowships abroad. We decided to go together as a family. I resigned from what I considered my dream job, packed up our home and left Ireland.
Our second child had arrived by then, a son so rudely healthy it was comical. Experiencing motherhood differently with him was a gift but it also sharpened the contrast with her ongoing struggles and my regrets deepened.
The relocation was harder than I expected. I’d always adapted easily as a third-culture child, but at the age of 33 I realised that Ireland had become home and leaving it meant grief. I managed on the outside: toddler classes, school runs, hospital visits, gym routines but inside, the eating disorder consumed me. It was how I survived the marital strain, the financial hardships, the career isolation.
Five years passed in that cycle, until one day I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. My husband had completed his fellowship training but I wasn’t prepared to keep forging my desire to return to work. Within two weeks, we were back in Ireland.
Returning felt like a homecoming.
THE SECOND INTERVIEW
Settled back, I found schools for the children, re-established our home and then the pandemic hit. Lockdowns, cocooning, nightly dinners at Chez Tahera’s while my husband worked on the front line. At the same time, I sought treatment for my anorexia, I returned to university again, this time for an MSc in Leadership and Management Practice and I began interviewing again.
This time, I was prepared. I knew the interview format, I’d worked with an HR coach, I could articulate my story, not just in terms of jobs but in terms of resilience, pivots and growth.
At one interview, I met the General Manager in what seemed to be the final stage. My answers were clear. My story made sense to me and to him. He complimented me on my resilience, on my ability to pivot from hardship to growth opportunities. For the first time, I was willing to show all of myself, messy parts included. I was clear: if my story was “too much,” then this wasn’t the right place for me and I wasn’t going to bloom here.
His response surprised me: “This job isn’t right for you. You need a bigger challenge.”
I left that interview happy to have been unsuccessful and I soon landed the next job. One that fit.
THE THREAD THAT HOLDS IT TOGETHER
Life is messy. Careers are twisty. Clarity is priceless.
We can’t edit the past, but we can reflect on it and find the red thread. That’s what makes the difference between a garbled draft and a story of growth.
Both of my interviews, ten years apart, were for the same position, in different organisations. My life had not rewritten itself in the years between. The hardships, the setbacks, the detours, the moments of joy were all still there. The difference was perspective.
In the first interview, I dismissed my personal story as irrelevant, even shameful. In the second, I valued it. I showed up as all of me, no edits.
I had become who I was always supposed to be. I am still becoming. It isn’t over. I remain curious, immersed in my growth and development, engaged in my professional life and in my personal one. That is the ongoing work: to live the draft fully, without trying to rewrite it and to embrace the person still in the making.
Coaching begins here:
- Which parts of your life have you written with intention?
- Which parts have been discovery in disguise?
- And what clarity might emerge if you stopped trying to edit the past and instead gave meaning to the draft as it stands?
Life isn’t a Word document. You don’t get to re-write but you do get to choose how you read the story you’ve already written and how you want to write the next line.
