Monday Motivation - Getting over the 20's fear.

I'm directing this post to people around my age, late teens/20's. I'm no expert and don't claim to be but I have suffered from the '20's fear' 1000 times over. This is basically my advice to anyone who is feeling completely stumped about what to do with their life at the minute.

First things first, sit back and remember how young you are and how much time you have to figure your shit out. STOP putting pressure on yourself as it will get you nowhere, pressure will push you into jobs or situations that you don't really want to be in but feel like you have to just to feel like you're doing something. Instead, start listening to yourself, really listening. Ask yourself what you want and be completely honest. Sit down and make a list, write down every single thing that you want from life, no matter how out of your reach these things seem to you now, if you can imagine them, you can do/be/achieve them. All major achievements start with one tiny thought, so don't limit yourself by thinking 'I'd love this to happen or I'd love this job, but it'll never happen to me.' So many people are selling themselves short by this thought.

Remember "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't" you are right.. 

After you make a list of the things you want, turn the page and start listing the reasons why you want these things, think about why you think you should or can have them- you'll be surprised how motivated you feel after, you're basically convincing yourself that these things are possible. This might sound like a total waste of time to some of you, but each to their own, I'm just sharing what works for me. I do it weekly and I find it really helps to keep me focused and motivated. 

To me, turning 20 was like a slap in the face- I found it to be such a scary age. Whether you're studying or working or somewhere in between- the transition between teen and adult hits HARD when you turn 20. I felt like all of sudden I had to have my shit together and know what I wanted or where I was going with my life, in your early 20's all your friends from school are either graduating or swanning around Thailand- I spent most of my 20th and 21st years trying my best to make it to one class a week and the rest of the time was spent watching netflix.

The further into your 20's you crawl the more baby pictures appear on your Facebook timeline and drunken weekend albums are replaced by engagement photoshoots. And I'm here thinking, when the F did I become a grown up?! 

I'm sitting in the living room every evening watching corrie with my mum and wondering when it's all going to click together for me. Eventually, somewhere around this time last year I realised that sitting on the couch eating noodles wasn't going to help me achieve what I wanted out of life. I was waiting for opportunities to land on my lap rather than actively pursuing them. It was after this realisation that things got interesting!

This year has been a major one for me, I have achieved more than I ever could have imagined before and I honestly believe it's down to the simple process of believing I could! 

I hope this gives even one of you reading this a good kick up the arse this Monday- "insert inspirational quote here" 

Jo X 

Real life Miss Universe...

Hi lovelies. I know it's been 2 months since my last blog post, I was so enthusiastic about it in the beginning and really wanted to post as often as I could but then a lot of exciting things happened in such a short space of time that unfortunately my wee blog became less of a priority.

So as most of you may know, the most exciting thing that happened to me in 2015 and was being crowned Miss Universe Ireland, then just 4 days later jetting off to Vegas to compete at Miss Universe (or real life Miss Universe as I've been calling it) ha! Now, a month on it all feels like a dream, so I'm just going to do a short post on what I've gained from the whole experience in the hope that it encourages any girls thinking about entering a pageant, to do so!

SO- On the third of December, after having only 4 days to prepare, I jetted of to Las Vegas to meet the other 80 girls competing for the title of Miss Universe- when I say prepare I mean I spent most of my time in the bath scrubbing off a spray tan and the rest of the time trying to convince myself that this was all actually happening. (On that note, if anyone has any tips for removing fake tan- PLEASE let me know, it's the bane of my life!!)  

At first when I arrived I felt completely overwhelmed by it all, I was going to spend the next 3 weeks sharing a room with a complete stranger and the rest of my time would be spent with literally the world's most beautiful girls. Thoughts going through my head were, am I going to have to wash my hair every day now in case my room mate judges me? Are my pyjama's pretty enough? Do I snore? What if she kills me in my sleep? Haaa.

But as the days went on I realised that those girls I had felt intimidated by on that first day, would be the same girls I would tear up saying goodbye to on the last.
The main point I'd like to get across in this post is that the 'pageant' girls we see in films like Miss Congeniality are in fact NOTHING like the intelligent, strong minded women I met, every one of them had their own personal statement and reason for being there, the roster was made up of doctors, teachers, journalists and models to name a few.

I have to commend the Miss Universe organisation for that, the whole team are set on reforming stereotypes and making sure that their Miss Universe is one of substance, with inner beauty being seen as just as important as their physical beauty.

This seemed to be the influence of the organisations new owners, WME IMG- this year was the change over year, the pageant will no longer be owned by Donald Trump. Obviously I hadn't been at Miss Universe before so I couldn't fully appreciate the change but the feeling amongst the long term staff and crew was that it was the best possible thing to happen to the pageant. Which is another reason I would encourage girls to enter, IMG is the biggest modeling agency in the world, so even if you don't consider yourself 'pageant material' you never know what it could lead to!

Finally, although I wish I had more time to prepare, I wouldn't change my experience! It was amazing from start to finish, I got to work with so many talented photographers, stylists, choreographers, I was interviewed on E! News, Access Hollywood, Fox and for Marie Clare. It really was a dream.

Through it I've learned to be confident and comfortable in myself, I went over feeling extremely conscious of my height, (being one of the smallest girls ever to make it to the final) but I soon learned that even the 5'9/10 amazonian goddess' all had their own insecurities too.

Oh and I also learned the green tea and lemon must be good for something because it is literally all we drank over there haa.

I hope this helps anyone considering entering Miss Universe, and doesn't bore everyone else to death. X

Two of the world's most beautiful girls, inside & out X

First time for everything

Hi there! So this is my first blog post and I first want to mention the excellent service I received from www.pipdig.co when setting up my blog. All I had to do was click a button and within 24hrs I had my very own website, they made it so easy for me and I couldn't recommend them more, you can find them here.
Secondly, Welcome to my blog!! I'm Joanna Cooper (hence the name JoCo). As I've said in 'About Me' I am currently studying broadcast journalism, I have always had a keen interest in both writing and fashion so I'm excited to be able to incorporate them both together in this blog.
I Hope you like the content & would love if you would follow/subscribe!
Jo x
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