Too stressed about a competition to even practice

[ondine1908]

I have a bit of a problem -- whenever a competition is coming up, all I can think about is how much it'll cost me if I don't win. All the money and time will go to waste. Fewer awards also means lower chances of getting in a good music school and finding a nice career (especially in the current music industry.) I feel like if I don't win, I'll be a living-room pianist for the rest of my life.
It makes me so nervous, I can barely even practice. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how do you deal with it?
Thank you

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Competitions don’t matter and where you went to school also doesn’t really matter.  Hope that helps

[lostinidlewonder]

A "good" career in piano is harder than winning competitions. Honestly winning competitions is not a good measurement of your career success or potential. Unless youre employed as a professor at a university,  managing a business becomes an essential skill. Overall you do need to be good at networking and dealing with your clients/peers, its very important.

Students of mine who want to do piano as a career I always try to convince them not to. Do something else. If you truly want to do piano for a living no one will convince you otherwise. It is just that hard imho, my first years in the career wasn't easy even though I was met with unusual success in performance. Building my teaching base was not something that just fell into my lap no matter what my past achievements in music. The thing is that it excited me, the challenge, and even though the pathway in teaching initially paid worse than my other degree in Engineering I wouldn't do anything else.