Shawn Mendes canceled the remainder of his Wonder world tour in July to focus on his mental health. Now, he’s opening up about what he’s learned since taking a step back from his career and where he wants to go next.
The singer told Rolling Stone he had felt tapped out, creatively.
Shawn explained, “I think I have felt that way for a long time; especially over the last two years was when I really stopped that train that I was on. I was like, ‘Listen, this is not the road to creativity. For me, this is not the best choice for art.'”
“I think you can create art, always. But I don’t want to dilute my art,” he continued.
As for the “train” Shawn was talking about, he clarified, “What wasn’t working for me was the constant pressure to have to create something and put it out in a few months. Or like, it was a sense of competition.”
“I think there’s definitely a healthy competition that is very clearly there in all industries, but for me, it was like when the competition was making me rush art … that’s when it wasn’t healthy anymore,” he explained.
Shawn also noted, “I’ve been a bit of a workaholic in the past and noticing that when I’m constantly working, I can stop myself from receiving inspiration of life.”
He said he’s now stricter in “allowing myself to live some life, because I really pull inspiration from memories.”
“I need to have memories and experiences and life to pull from because otherwise, there’s no depth to it,” he continued. “So nowadays, I really try to trust this process of, it’s going to come, it’s going to come, and when it does, it’s going to be correct.”
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