If you’re obsessed with Instagram stars and spend most of your free time scrolling, liking and posting, this list is for you. Stop secretly wishing you had a wardrobe like MissFashionQueen18 and work on your star power. Here’s 6 ways to be the star of your show.
1. Ask for what you want: The date. His number. Her number. A chance to redo that crappy Of Mice And Men paper. A minute to breathe. That’s a big deal (I know!), if you’ve never asserted yourself. So do this, start small. Start with dessert. Ask for the tiramisu. Get the tiramisu. Eat the freakin’ tiramisu. Tomorrow, ask for something a lil’ bit bigger, and keep doing it until you’re ready to ask for the BIG ask.
2.Define yourself, for yourself: Who knows you better than you? Nobody. But if you listen to the chatter from classmates and let the opinions from play cousins in your head, you become who they think you are. Know your likes. Know your dislikes. Know where you rock. Does your pike position make the other gymnasts snatch out their weaves? Good. Know where you need polish, too. Do you run too many junk miles? Fix that. This, like most things is life, is an ongoing process once you get to know yourself better.
3. Prepare, prepare, prepare: That’s obvi, right? But you’d be surprised to know that many of your friends skip this step. They wing it, i.e. freestyle like a rapper without 16 hot bars. Then they wonder why everything fell apart. Duh. Dig in. Study. Practice. Rehearse. Experiment. Read. These are the verbs that get results. Hate sharing your robotic intel during an oral preso in science class? Stand in front of the mirror and practice. Find your rhythm, i.e. figure out a way that you can own the moment and make it suck less. Practice is better than you know, winging it (which meant you did nada) on the big day. Plus, you aren’t Kendrick Lamar, so leave the freestyling to the pros.
4. Act like you want it: Make your thoughts and your actions work together. You gotta shift. Change behavior, posture, and ’tude. Speak with authority. Add some volume. Kill the ums, wells, you knows and maybes. Go for eye-to-eye contact with teacher, counselor, therapist or preacher because the dirty floor doesn’t have the answer. Be like professional surfer Briana Cope in that “I Will What I Want” campaign for Under Armour. Tune out the noise. Shake off the haters. Focus. Act like a champion.
5. Get used to hearing the word no: But don’t let it make you crumble. You may hear five no’s before you hear one yes. Keep asking. Auditioning. Playing. Drawing. Striving. Climbing. Writing. J.K. Rowling and her wizard boy in glasses were rejected multiple times before Scholastic snapped them up and added tons of shillings and pounds to Rowling’s purse. Now she’s a legend.
6. Leave procrastination station: Stop sitting at this imaginary station waiting for the B14 or the express train to whisk you off to the land of Beautiful People with the designer clothes and winning lottery tickets. It ain’t gonna happen. That chem project will still be due in five days. That dream of performing your original song in the talent show will still be there—collecting dust—if you continue to put the important stuff off until tomorrow, Monday, or next week or next month. Get off your butt. Do something dope right now. The clock is ticking. Go.
