4 Life Lessons Taylor Swift Learned The Hard Way About Controlling Her Narrative
Taylor Swift's influence on our culture seems to know no bounds, but that didn't always come easy for the songstress.
DFree | Shutterstock “Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release,” said Taylor Swift during her 2022 commencement address at New York University. “Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go.”
For Taylor, who has been onstage since she was 10 years old, that means putting her precious time and energy into the people and projects that matter and being strong enough to filter out what’s not serving her goals.
To that end, Taylor has spent her early 30s communicating directly to her fans, imparting what she knows is true. Whether through posts to her more than 500 million followers on social media, the documentary Miss Americana, or connecting with Swifties at every stop of the Eras Tour, she’s taken firm control of the narrative that surrounds her.
Along the way, Taylor Swift shared the lessons she learned about controlling her narrative:
1. Put other people’s opinions in perspective
“I learned not to let outside opinions establish the value I place on my own life choices,” Taylor told Elle in 2019. “For too long, the projected opinions of strangers affected how I viewed my relationships.
Whether it was the general internet consensus of who would be right for me, or what they thought was ‘couples goals’ based on a picture I posted on Instagram. That stuff isn’t real. For an approval seeker like me, it was an important lesson to learn to have my value system of what I want.”
2. Stand up for what you know is right
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“Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” Taylor told Vogue in 2019 about standing up for LGBTQ+ rights.
“I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.”
3. Accept that no one needs a legitimate reason to hate you
“Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now,” Taylor shared with Rolling Stone in 2019.
“People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t need very many reasons to do it.… And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong.
That was hard for me because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me.
And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse.”
4. Focus on what you love
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“I think there are two things that have protected me throughout my career,” Taylor told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “The first thing is my enthusiasm and the second thing is how much I love music,” she said. “
As soon as you fail, enthusiasm tells you that the next great idea is around the corner. And your love of music will always center you if you’re doing this for that and that alone, because that is hard to take away. People can reduce and criticize other elements but…it sounds really simple, but loving the actual making of music and playing music has helped me balance things.”
5. Embrace your enthusiasm
“There is false stigma around eagerness in our culture of unbothered ambivalence. This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to want it. That people who don’t try are fundamentally more chic than those who do,” Taylor said during her 2022 commencement address at NYU.
“I wouldn’t know, because I’ve been a lot of things, but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic’. But I’m the one who’s up here [onstage] so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth.
The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who wanted it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”
In her 2022 song “Anti-Hero,” Taylor sings, “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser.” Despite those lyrics, she has found a wise path to survive and thrive through the challenges of always being in the spotlight and always being judged. Luckily for her millions of fans, she’s generous enough to share what she has learned in case it helps them too.
Holly Corbett is the author of Taylor Swift: Spotlight On A Legend. This article is an excerpt from that book.