Christelle Stenvinkel

For a long time, I thought I was supposed to know exactly where I was going.

Pick a career. Work hard. Keep moving forward.

And eventually, everything would make sense.

I’m 30 now, and I’m realizing that maybe it doesn’t work that way.

My career hasn’t followed one straight line. I started in journalism, moved into film and producing, and later found myself working in marketing and communications.

I’ve lived and studied in different countries. I’ve changed direction. I’ve started over. And I’ve definitely had moments when I’ve looked at other people who seemed so established in their careers and wondered whether I should be further along by now.

But when I look back, the moments that shaped me most weren’t necessarily the ones I planned.

One of the Biggest Happened When I Was 23

I was diagnosed with lupus.

Suddenly, at an age when I thought I should be thinking about my career and everything I wanted to do with my life, I was thinking about doctors, treatments, and my health.

Things shifted.

Not only in what I could do, but in how I saw the world around me.

Lupus can be invisible. Someone can look completely fine and still be dealing with something no one else can see.

Living through that experience made me more aware of what other people might be carrying beneath the surface.

It also made women’s health much more personal to me.

Lupus disproportionately affects women, and there are important racial and ethnic disparities in the illness. I started thinking more about the experiences women live with that we don’t always see or talk about enough.

And because storytelling had always been something I loved, eventually those two parts of my life came together.

One of My First Short Films Was About a Woman Living With Lupus

It was a small project and a very personal one. The film went on to receive recognition through a few smaller awards, which meant a lot to me.

But something else about that experience stayed with me.

I realized how meaningful it felt to create something from an experience that had once made me feel powerless.

Something difficult had become a story.

And that story could potentially make someone else feel understood.

I think that was when my idea of what I wanted from my career started changing.

I still wanted to be creative. I still wanted to work in film and entertainment. I was still ambitious.

But I started caring more about impact.

What am I creating?

Who is it reaching?

Does it make someone feel something?

Does it bring attention to a perspective we don’t hear enough?

I don’t think every piece of work needs to change the world. Sometimes we need stories simply because they entertain us, make us laugh, or give us somewhere else to go for a while.

But I do know that I want some of the work I create in my lifetime to mean something beyond me.

Maybe That’s Why My Career Makes More Sense to Me Now Than It Used to

Journalism taught me to be curious about people.

Film taught me how powerful a story can become when you can actually see and feel someone’s experience.

Producing taught me how much persistence it takes to turn an idea into something real.

Marketing has taught me that telling a story is only one part of the equation. You also have to find a way for that story to reach people.

For years, I saw these as different directions.

Now I’m starting to see the thread connecting them.

Storytelling.

I’m still figuring out what I want to do with it.

And I think that’s the part I would have been afraid to admit a few years ago.

I don’t have a story about reaching the top of my field.

I’m still building my career.

There are projects I haven’t made yet. Jobs I haven’t had yet. Ideas I haven’t figured out how to turn into something real.

And there are probably directions my life will take that I can’t see from where I’m standing today.

At 23, I certainly couldn’t have predicted them.

Maybe that’s okay.

We Talk So Much About Successful Women Once They’ve Arrived Somewhere

We hear about the company they built, the promotion they earned, the award they won, or the moment everything finally came together.

But there’s a lot of life that happens before that moment.

There’s uncertainty.

Starting over.

Changing your mind.

Trying something and realizing it isn’t for you.

And sometimes there’s something you never planned for that changes the way you see everything that comes after it.

I would never have chosen lupus.

I don’t think difficult experiences need to happen for a reason, and I don’t believe we have to turn every hard thing into something positive.

But I can acknowledge that living with it has changed me.

It has made me more empathetic.

It has made me pay attention to experiences that aren’t always visible.

And it has made me think more carefully about the kind of work I want to put into the world.

Maybe Influence Doesn’t Begin Once You’ve Figured Everything Out

Maybe it begins while you’re still figuring it out.

When you tell one story that matters to you.

When you make one person feel seen.

When you decide that whatever you’re building, you want at least some of it to leave something meaningful behind.

I’m 30, and I still don’t know exactly where my career will take me.

But I know I want to keep creating.

I know I want to keep telling stories.

And I know I want some of those stories to give more visibility to women, health, and experiences we don’t talk about enough.

I’m still figuring out the rest.

And maybe that’s the point.