Taylor Swift Revealed Her Coping Mantra. Here’s How to Find Yours

—Matt Winkelmeyer—Getty Images Taylor Swift already told us she can do it with a broken heart .

That might be due to grit , stamina—or a little psychological trick called a coping mantra.

When she feels stressed by her circumstances, “I go through several processes and coping mechanisms ,” Swift revealed in August during the Icon Sessions , a conversation presented by the Recording Academy’s Songwriters & Composers Wing.

“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 if you don’t have plans to perform in stadiums worldwide, you might recognize the peculiar frustration of being trapped by something you chose—whether that’s the job you once desperately wanted, the committee you volunteered to lead, or the dinner party you insisted on hosting.

“Where people tend to get really distressed is when they feel powerless, or like something's being put upon you—you're just sort of stuck in an achy feeling,” says Jill Stoddard, a clinical psychologist in Newburyport, Mass.

“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.” Enter the coping mantra: a short, deliberate phrase you can reach for when your brain starts sprinting toward the worst-case scenario.

Stress leaves little room for nuance, says Dr.

Jasmine Sawhne, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles.

When your body is in fight-or-flight mode, you’re not going to reason your way out of it.

A mantra gives your overloaded brain something simple to grab onto—and buys you a beat to choose what to do next.

Here’s how to find one that actually helps.

Make your brain an offer it can believe “Everything will be OK” is a lovely thought.