4 minSociety
How to Find a Coping Mantra That Actually Works
Taylor Swift's coping mantra, revealed in a recent interview, highlights a simple psychological tool for managing stress. Experts explain how to craft a short, truthful phrase that helps you regain a sense of control in difficult moments.
When Taylor Swift feels overwhelmed by the demands of her career, she relies on a simple psychological tool: a coping mantra. In August, during the Icon Sessions, a conversation presented by the Recording Academy’s Songwriters & Composers Wing, Swift described how she manages stress. “I go through several processes and coping mechanisms,” she said. “And one of them is saying, ‘You chose this. You chose this every day. You could have opted out of this any day before it got unmanageably big.’ And I decided not to because I love it that much.”
Even for those who do not perform in stadiums worldwide, the feeling of being trapped by a choice—a demanding job, a volunteer committee, or a self-imposed obligation—is familiar. Clinical psychologist Jill Stoddard, based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, explains that distress often arises when people feel powerless. “But if you remind yourself, ‘Wait a minute, this is actually a choice I made, and choices do come with difficult consequences, but I'm in charge here’—that empowers you to move forward,” she says.
A coping mantra is a short, deliberate phrase designed to interrupt the brain’s tendency to spiral toward worst-case scenarios. Dr. Jasmine Sawhne, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles, notes that stress leaves little room for nuance. When the body is in fight-or-flight mode, reasoning alone is not enough. A mantra gives the overloaded brain something simple to grasp, buying a moment to choose the next step.
Experts emphasize that the mantra must be believable. Predictions like “everything will be OK” are a form of fortune-telling that an anxious brain may reject, says Alison McKleroy, a San Francisco therapist and author of The Self-Compassion Journal. Similarly, affirmations such as “I am confident” fail if they contradict current feelings. Instead, a useful mantra states a choice within one’s control, as Swift’s does: “I’m choosing to keep doing this, difficult parts and all.”
Stoddard uses a different but equally reality-based phrase: “I’ll get it done. I always do.” It works because it is true for her. “I wouldn’t have a PhD in psychology if I didn’t always get it done,” she says. The best mantra is simple, specific, memorable, and true—not an exercise in “blowing sunshine” at oneself.
To craft a personal mantra, therapist Joanna Hardis, author of Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way, suggests asking: “What do I need to remind myself when I get uncomfortable?” Instead of a generic phrase for stress, identify the brain’s favorite way of making stress worse and find a phrase that interrupts it. For those who predict disaster, McKleroy suggests: “I can’t know that yet” or “I don’t have a crystal ball.”
Sawhne’s own mantra, “I don’t have to solve everything right now,” reminds her that urgency and importance are not the same. McKleroy, who tends to over-research and complicate projects, tells herself: “Let it be simple.”
Length matters. A mantra should be short enough to say in one breath, ideally about four words. “We just don’t have a lot of cognitive bandwidth” under stress, Sawhne says. Hardis’s mantra, “Discomfort, not danger,” passes the one-breath test. She used it during exposure therapy for a fear of flying nearly two decades ago and still relies on it during turbulence. “It helped me get through the flight and do what I knew I needed to do,” she recalls. The fear was still present, but it no longer dictated her actions.
