If you’ve heard the cult favorite, “Everybody Says Don’t” from the Broadway musical, “Anyone Can Whistle” – Then you know what it’s like to break away from the crowd and have the courage to do what’s in your heart! In today’s blog, I decided to take a few of my favorite “Don’t Phrases” in order to help you remember a few key things in the weeks leading up to your state title.
Now, just to clarify – When “Junkies Say Don’t” – It’s not in an attempt to stifle your creativity or make you conform… Rather, we’re here to remind you that some “Don’ts” are good “Don’ts”… Oh dear – that is the strangest looking sentence I’ve typed in a long time… Hope you “don’t” hold it against me and know what I mean! LOL! Here we go!
DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
There are A LOT of “small things” that can easily take over any pageant contestant’s normal state of mind. The wrong earrings… there’s not enough fashion tape… your hair is suddenly doing strange things in the summer humidity… The list can go on and on and on. What’s important, is that you realize that NONE of that stuff, will keep you from winning. That’s right – NONE of what I just listed above is grounds for disqualification (unless you have a really significant wardrobe malfunction requiring A LOT more fashion tape than I’m assuming any one pageant contestant might actually need!)
Further – nearly everything I mentioned above can be achieved with a little help from a fellow contestant! In fact, once upon a thousand years ago, I was competing in a local pageant and accidentally forgot my interview suit (yes – we wore suits back then). Problem was, I didn’t even realize I’d left it hanging in my closet about 90 miles away until it was time to change for my private interview!
Turns out, one of the other contestants had something I could wear, and even though I didn’t think I’d even begin to fit into it, I made it work and lived to tell about it. And while I didn’t win that local, that’s when I realized my fellow contestants were actually friends – Friends who weren’t about to let me walk into an interview wearing a Sarah McLachlan t-shirt. If that’s not enough reason not to sweat the small stuff, I don’t know what is…
DON’T CRY OVER SPILLED MILK
Let’s say you just handed in your paperwork and after going over it for the one-millionth time, you found a typo. AAHHHH! The Horror! How Embarrassing!!!
What should you do next???
Here’s what you do… You Shake it Off. You Let it Go. I don’t care what your favorite personal forgiveness song is – Sing it loud and sing it proud – Then move along. 🙂
Why?
Honestly, because there’s nothing you can do it about it now. At this point, you pretty much have two options… You can either torture yourself about it – or you can let bygones by bygones. And may I just say, everything that happens during pageant week will be a lot easier to tolerate if you let it go sooner than later. 🙂
Regardless of what it is… If you discover a mistake, or there’s something you wish you would’ve done differently but it’s too late to change it now – There’s no need to freak out and make yourself crazy. The milk has been spilled – the best thing to do is to get up and move on from here. Trust me – as a state titleholder, you’ll be in plenty of situations where things don’t work out as you planned. Might as well start practicing your adaptation skills now 🙂
DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY 🙂
I know, I know… There’s a lot to worry about when you participate in a pageant. Especially in interview. You’re trying to make sure you look the way you want to look – you sound the way you want to sound – and that the judges get a good understanding of who you are, even when they ask you a bunch crazy questions that you’ve never thought about before.
But worrying about these things and more, is NOT a good idea. Therefore, for every negative “What if” question you ask yourself (and subsequently freak yourself out about) – Take a moment and ask yourself a positive “What if” question! For example…
NEGATIVE – “What if they ask me how I would solve the National Debt crisis?”
POSITIVE – “What if I’m so ready and prepared, that every single question they ask, is a question I can’t wait to hear???”
There’s a flip the script moment for you!
Honestly – Instead of panicking about all the awful things they could ask you – I would encourage you to change your way of thinking and consider all the AWESOME and AMAZING things that could happen in your interview!
When your mind dwells on the positive, you’ll be surprised how hard it is to worry. Wanna know why? It’s because you’re too busy being happy! Huh – Funny how that works!?!
And there you have it! Remember – Just keep your “Good Don’ts” separated from your “Bad Don’ts” and you can easily have the time of your life during your state pageant! Just “don’t” forward this post to your favorite English professor… I’ll likely never hear the end of it!
#BigJunkieLove
Carrie Lakey
If you’d like to read more #ThursdayBlogDay posts like this one (which are much more grammatically correct than this one), just click here…
Carrie Lakey is kind of obsessed with Miss America…
So are 15,000 of her closest friends.
As an avid fan of the Miss America Organization, Carrie began
publicly predicting pageant winners over 10 years ago.
Now, she’s galvanizing an online movement of fans
known as “Pageant Junkies”.
Learn more about the Junkie Nation
by clicking here.
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