Overcoming Nervousness; Improving; Pursuing

Hey guys! I hope you had a pleasant Wednesday night. Hopefully your summer is pleasantly drawing to a close, I know mine is. Tonight I saw the movie 30 Minutes or Less and it was surprisingly okay! I usually don’t get too excited for movies like that, but it was one that made me anticipate what was next. It wasn’t a movie you could totez call ahead of time. 

Before I went though, I was at my school’s callbacks for the musical Les Miserables. For those who may not know, a callback is, in accordance from the dictionary, “An invitation to return for a second audition or interview.” I went in for Cosette. She is a legit soprano in the show, and I wasn’t familiar with the musical all too well, but I tried my best. 

I walked into my room with the cut of “In My Life” in my hand, trying to remain on a relatively calm side. We, like ten to twelve other girls, went through the music as a group with our vocal pedagogy teacher and the accompanist. She said what she needed to say about the music, and then we all sat down and went up one by one voluntarily to sing for the director (our acting teacher) and the music director (voice teacher). 

I was extremely nervous. Which leads me to write this post about learning to deal with nervousness or anxiousness for performing, being interviewed, and things of that sort. 

They say that luck is met by preparation and opportunity, which means, to achieve what you want you must practice at it. Regardless of what it is in life: football, dancing, singing, etc. You must make yourself vulnerable and open; not afraid to make mistakes. If and when you do so, you are more likely to find and improve the things you struggle with, rather than trying to mask them, if you understand what I’m saying. 

Once you do so, KEEP AT IT! Do not give up. Persevere through it, because the end result is going to be incredibly worth it. 

One last tip to give you: The only way to get over the fears of those sorts of things is to place yourself in that situation quite often. For example, my freshman year of high school, we were performing in front of our musical theatre class, but found ourselves to be so nervous that none of us wanted to go. It was intimidating because we have this incredible teacher who has accomplished so much. None of us want to be judged, you know? But honestly, the only way to face that fear is to do it. It’s like swimming. You can do the preparation outside of the water, but in order to execute the verb of swimming itself, you must place yourself in the water and learn from there. And you keep at it. 

So I realized today that I really need to become more active in auditioning. I truly believe I am a great singer and have the skills to execute a song greatly, but the auditioning itself just makes me nervous! So I am going to look for an auditioning class. 

I hope you all try something new this year! Last year, my sophomore year, I decided I wanted to be the mascot of my high school and I ended up doing it! I met great people, had the opportunity to be more involved with my school, and overall, could actually tell people that I was doing something so important. It was a great conversation starter, and definitely got laughs out of people.

Whether it is auditioning for the school’s productions or starting a club, try something new! It just might be something you end up really enjoying and doing for the rest of your life. Have a great night!