Living Life With Confidence + Win A Trip to Essence Fest

The following giveaway promotion and content has been sponsored by State Farm®.

It was a cloudy Friday morning and I was heading out to Randall’s Island in NYC for my very first summer music festival experience of 2015. The night before I had gotten my hair done in crochet braids for the first time and unbeknownst to me, the hair didn’t set properly enough to achieve the style I had hoped for. When I took down my flexi-rods and looked at myself in the mirror that morning, I wanted to cry. My hair was way bigger and way crazier than I’d ever seen it and immediately my confidence was shot. I was officially having a “bad hair day”. Not to mention, I was scheduled to take a shuttle bus to the festival with my friends and I was running incredibly late, trying to make fetch happen with what appeared to be a rat’s nest on my head. So I grabbed an afro pick and started teasing and brushing for dear life. I thought about how much fun I was planning to have that day and how excited I was to see my friends, and I tried to put my hair disaster at the back of my mind so I could prepare to head out.

Fast-forward to the moment I stepped onto the bus that morning and my friends greeted me with big smiles. “That hair! It’s beautiful!”, said one. Another assured me “Big hair is in! We’re going to a festival, you’re going to fit right in.” All it took was a few reassuring words and hearing the first few notes of live music on stage at the festival that day to liven me up and let my guard down. Once I finally put a smile on my face and a little shimmy in my shoulders, I got compliments about my hair left and right and I really had the time of my life that day – big hair and all.

I said all that to say, confidence is in the eye of the beholder. When you have a smile on your face and a dance in your soul, nothing can take away your confidence – not even big, frizzy hair. It also doesn’t hurt to surround yourself with positive friends who will give you the jolt of confidence you need when you’re feeling low.

Another music festival I look forward to attending each summer with my friends is the Essence Festival in New Orleans! Because I realize the importance of living life with confidence through every one of your life stages, I’m partnering up with State Farm® to get the word out about their new “Get In The Groove” contest. State Farm wants you to show off your own dose of confidence through dance, for a chance to win a trip to the 2015 ESSENCE Festival® presented by Coca Cola®.

My friends and I will be at Essence Festival live and in the flesh and I’d love to see one of YOU there as well, courtesy of State Farm! So here’s what you need to do.

FOLLOW THIS (2) TWO STEP ENTRY PROCESS:

1. Post a contest entry to Instagram using the two hashtags #StateFarmGroove and #ContestEntry.

2. Go to st8.fm/SFGroove to complete your entry for a chance to win the amazing opportunity to attend the 2015 ESSENCE Festival®!

BONUS! You can win a $50 Visa gift card if you leave a comment below answering this:

Share one tip of your own explaining how YOU live life with confidence on a daily basis! (Make sure to leave your email address and/or Instagram @ handle within so I can contact you if you win.)

This post is sponsored by State Farm®. As always, all opinions expressed above are my own and not those of the company.