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We are well and truly in pageant season.
Which means somewhere, right now, there is a contestant practising her walk for the 487th time, panicking about whether her interview dress says “future titleholder” or “real estate agent with excellent posture,” and wondering if she should change her entire platform three days before competition.
You know. Normal behaviour.
And look, I get it.
Strategy matters.
You need to know how to interview. You need to know how to walk. You need to know how to communicate your platform without sounding like you were assembled in a lab by three former titleholders and a ring light.
But strategy is not always the problem.
Sometimes the problem is the story underneath it.
This week’s coaching video is about the three S’s I look at when working with contestants:
State. Strategy. Story.
Most pageant prep starts with strategy.
What should I say?
How should I stand?
How do I answer political questions?
How do I make my platform sound impressive?
How do I make the judges like me without looking like I’m trying to make the judges like me?
Fair questions.
Then there’s state.
Are you walking into interview calm, grounded and confident? Or are you walking in like your entire nervous system has been put in a blender and someone forgot to put the lid on?
Again, important.
But the missing piece, the piece most contestants never really look at, is story.
What does pageantry mean to you?
What does winning mean to you?
And perhaps more importantly:
What would it mean if you didn’t win?
Because if your story is:
“If I win, it proves I’m worthy.”
That is going to affect how you perform.
If your story is:
“If I don’t win, this was all a giant waste of time.”
That is going to affect how you perform.
If your story is:
“I need this crown to feel validated, successful, beautiful, important, chosen, enough...”
Well, congratulations. You’ve just placed the emotional weight of your entire self-worth onto five strangers and a scoring sheet you may never see.
Which, as life plans go, is not exactly bulletproof.
This is why some contestants become so tight.
They care so much that they stop performing freely.
They stop connecting.
They stop enjoying the room.
They stop being themselves and start trying to drag the crown toward them with the sheer force of their desperation.
Which, weirdly enough, is rarely the most magnetic version of a person.
The strange thing is, if you really want to win, you may actually need to care a bit less.
Not stop caring.
Not become lazy.
Not float into competition weekend with the energy of someone who wandered into the ballroom looking for the breakfast buffet.
But care less in the sense that your identity is not on the line.
Your future is not on the line.
Your worth is not on the line.
Because pageantry can be a brilliant tool for growth. It can sharpen your interview skills, stretch your confidence, expand your network, push your advocacy and force you to become a more disciplined version of yourself.
But it is a terrible place to outsource your self-worth.
In this week’s coaching video, I break down why story matters so much, how it affects your state and strategy, and why the story you’re carrying into the room might be the very thing making pageantry heavier than it needs to be.
So before your next pageant, ask yourself:
What story am I bringing with me?
And is that story helping me?
Or is it slowly strangling the life out of me while smiling beautifully in a crown?
Adrian.
The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:
