Mar 08, 2026 5:36pm IST
Navya Naveli Nanda: ‘I Think Empowerment To Me, Means, The Freedom To Make Your Own Choices On Your Own Terms’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Navya Naveli Nanda has forged her own path when it comes to choosing the direction she’s taking personally and professionally. As a podcaster, entrepreneur, an author and a Gen-Z youngster, she has achieved much. While she acknowledges the privilege she comes from and the independence it brings, she does admit that everyone faces pressures, but that if we are true to what we want to do, we can be free. And to admit to oneself that we cannot be 100 percent at everything.
Do you feel young women today face different pressures around relationships and independence?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of pressure in general, I think for young women, whether it's from the way that we look to what we do to, you know, certain roles that we play in society or within families, even in our professional lives. And I think that as a young woman, I'm sure that every, every one of us at some point in our lives goes through that pressure, or probably struggles with trying to navigate different roles that we're expected to play.
And I think that something that my naani always told me was that, you know, if we start looking at what people expect of us, we forget what we want from ourselves. And it's always important to ask yourself first, what you want to do and whether that's becoming a CEO or a homemaker, that's a decision that you make and whatever that decision is, is yours, and you should stand by it no matter what. And that's also what I think empowerment means, which is the freedom to make your own choices on your own terms.
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What is the one pressure you believe young people should stop placing on themselves? And what is the one pressure you've personally learned to let go of this year?
I think one pressure young people should stop placing on themselves is probably trying to mould themselves into what society expects them to be. I think a lot of young people go through that, whether it's dressing a certain way or speaking a certain way or doing things that other people are doing. I feel like it's so important, especially in today's world, to stay true to who you are because, you know, nothing anymore is as real as it used to be.
You don't know whether what you're seeing on Instagram is real or what someone's doing is real. So I think it's important to stay focused on who you are, what your likes are, what your preferences are, and not try to follow the herd every time. I think in today's world, it's probably better to be as authentic as you can.
And probably a pressure that I've learned to let go of is I think, you know, you can't always be 100% every day. I do a lot of different things. I'm a student, you know, entering this phase of my life, I'm becoming an author, I'm also an entrepreneur, I'm also a daughter, I'm also a sister. And I think there's so many different roles and a pressure that I've learned to let go is that I can't always be 100% in every single role.
So I wake up every day and I choose the role that I want to play and I try to focus on just that and give that my 100% rather than trying to be great at everything because that's not going to happen.
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