When I became the Young Australian of the Year, I was so excited.  I had a glamorous ideal that my life would change completely!  It changed a lot – I gave heaps of speeches all around the country, and did heaps of media engagements.  But in many ways, it also stayed the same.  I always had it in my head that the people who won awards like this had meetings all the time with big CEOs in high-rise buildings.  That they lived glamorous and fancy lives.  That they had everything sorted.

But I kept living in my $500 a month share house.  I occasionally met big CEOs, but I didn’t spend all my time doing that - and I'd done that even before I was given the award.  I still would walk out my house to the tram stop, with my hair wet, in my shirt and jeans, to take the tram to uni, trying desperately not to be noticed (wet hair isn't the best look).  I still had to stay up late working on my final year project, cook my own dinners, and not to mention, contend with the day-to-day mundane of running my organisation.  I’ve been at events with the Prime Minister five times in the past year, including the exclusive Mid-Winter Ball at Parliament House in Canberra, but even then I stayed at a friend’s place in Canberra in her spare room.

People often compare other people’s highlight reel to their own backstage, but the reality is very different.

At the time I won, I had a big issue I was grappling with, which was that I didn’t know how to structure my organization when I handed it over to a successor at the end of 2012.  I thought that with the award, people would just give me the answer to my big issue, and everything was going to be easy!  I arranged to meet up with a CEO of another organization who said they would mentor me and give me advice about structuring my organization.  I thought I had struck gold!  She was going to give me the answers!

After meeting with her, I realized that that’s not how things work.  Even if you're Young Australian of the Year, doesn't mean that all your problems are solved, doesn't mean that someone will hand you all your solutions on a silver platter.  Having a title like Young Australian of the Year is like another badge of credibility which gives you a greater platform to share your message, and to make things happen.  You still have to be the one that goes out there to take the opportunity.  The world doesn’t owe you anything.

But by leveraging my new public profile, Robogals was able to increase its impact fivefold in Australia from reaching 563 girls in 2011 to 2,922 girls in 2012.

I learnt that even if you have all the opportunities in the world, you still need to be the one that seizes them to achieve your goals.

Outward success is not very glamourous but it does give you the opportunity to have a much bigger impact.  Stop comparing other people's success reel to your backstage, because it's not that glamourous underneath for them either.