What happens when one fateful night changes your entire life? Do you completely lose hope and faith, or do you fight back with renewed motivation? For Aastha Gujarati, it was much more than that.

However, that did not stop her from dreaming big. She was working hard towards achieving her ambition of becoming a successful CA. She wanted to make her parents proud. But then the biggest setback of her life occurred. She lost her father.

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The family lost the sole breadwinner and she lost her life hero. The family was devastated. She felt that overnight she and her brother had grown several years.  She was surrounded by a feeling of hopelessness. She began to isolate herself from friends and society.

All of a sudden her life purpose started to slip out of her hands. She couldn’t react or think sensibly. She started questioning, “Why me, why us?”

A small glimmer of hope appeared in the form of her mother. It is said, sometimes life gives you no option other than pushing you to become great. She inspired Aastha to live in the present and work towards her future. All of a sudden she summarised her life goal in one sentence – “To keep my mother happy and work towards my goal”.

She did not allow herself to get demotivated and distance herself from the sympathy givers. All she had was fragile faith and lofty aims. Her only self-motto was, “I need to make it work anyhow”.

She stresses the importance of having a routine in life. She followed a strong work ethic with constant preparation for months in a row. Be it running from one class to another, timely completion of assignments in the early hours, or managing the self, family, and office work pressure. She was ready to pay the right price for her success.

But it was not that easy. There were times when she cried and felt broken. “Many times I had tears streaming down my face but I resolved not to give up. I studied with teary eyes because I had to make it at any cost”. No one in the family celebrated any festivals for two whole years. She disconnected herself from social media – built a shell around herself.

She says, “Pity makes people weak”. True, she was there to win results, not sympathy.

It was harmful for her mental health. She decided to remove this from her life. “If you want to achieve something, you need to be yourself, be different, and most importantly be strong. Now that I look back, I can’t believe I had the courage to come out of that low phase in my life”.

She recalls, “Those days were the best when I didn’t even have the time to look at my phone”.

Nothing troubled her whether it was spending time in the library, attending lectures, or staying late in the office. She said she had got a purpose. Finally, the day came when the rewards of her labor were gifted, she cleared her CA.

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Today, Aastha is on her journey of emotional healing and spirituality. She has faith that she will continue her journey of success – becoming an affluent Chartered Accountant. She is optimistic that she will keep her mother, brother, and most importantly, herself happy. “Self-satisfaction is the most important thing in life”.

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Please join me in welcoming CA Aastha Gujrati to the elite Real Life Heroes club for her outstanding determination.  Well done!