Miss Universe Harnaaz Sandhu shares how she convinced her father to support her dreams

Talking about the difficult journey young people need to go through to figure out what they want, Harnaaz told ANI, "My ultimate support throughout this journey was my family. My only advice to the youth will be that it will be difficult for them to understand the whole process of what they want to do in their life because that's not easy. You will take a lot of time to think what you want to do."

She added that even though it gets difficult to carve your path, having your family's support helps to make things easier. "With your family support everything comes easy because they are the ones who will help you the best in decision making," she said.

She also shared that initially, her father was not on board with her pursuing a career in the fashion industry. "My family always supported me. At one time my father was not very comfortable with me doing beauty pageants in the fashion industry because that's the very obvious stereotype or stigma which comes along with this industry. But with my mom's help and me making him understand the whole process, calming myself down and bridging that gap of generation is very important," she said.

Harnaaz added that patience is the key to achieving our goals. "The youth needs to be very patient, believe in the process, go with the flow and always keep your family beside you," she signed off.

Harnaaz bagged the Miss Universe title at the 70th edition of Miss Universe 2021, held in Eilat, Israel on December 13, 2021.