How Shawn Mendes handles his anxiety headlining 1st stadium show in Toronto

Canadian-born superstar Shawn Mendes talks about managing his anxiety as he kicks off his upcoming 2019 concert tour featuring a Toronto date when he will headline the first stadium show of his career. (Shawn Mendes/YouTube)

Canadian-born superstar Shawn Mendes talks about managing his anxiety as he kicks off his upcoming tour where he’ll head to Toronto to headline his first stadium show — the largest headline event of his career.

The 20-year-old singer-songwriter told CTV’s Your Morning he felt “overwhelmed” to be headlining, because the last time he played there was as a supporting act for pop icon Taylor Swift.

“It was the surreal feeling. I think as a performer, it’s everything you work for to be able to play a stadium one day,” he said.

On Sept. 6 next year, he’ll cap off his global tour by headed back to his hometown of Toronto to perform at the city’s largest venue, the Rogers Centre, which can accommodate up to 55,000 concert-goers.

“The more success that I get, the bigger the crowds get, the bigger the shows that are coming up get, the harder I feel I’m working every day to make sure that I deserve to be on that stage,” Mendes said.

He said it was “very hard” dealing with anxiety sometimes — an issue he laid bare in his single “In My Blood” back in April.

“I sit down when things are kind of getting to me and I just start to write down what is truly meaningful to me,” he said, adding that he has to tell himself to take deep breaths.

His self-titled album, his third studio album in three years, tackled several different genres because Mendes said he wanted to explore more.

“I wanted to make music that I maybe would have been scared to make a couple years ago,” he said. “To never to be able to have people guess what you’re doing next is the goal.”

Mendes aims to keep fans on their toes, because the last thing he’d want them thinking is: “Oh, I know what this is going to sound like.”

He told CTV’s Your Morning that his love for the 2003 indie film “Lost in Translation,” directed by Sofia Coppola starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, inspired him to make the music video for October’s “Lost in Japan” as an homage.

“I was super nervous that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off,” Mendes said, praising the director and crew for bringing the whole project together.

Mendes’ success in the past several years has also been punctuated by his inclusion in TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2018, where singer John Mayer described him as grounded and humble.

Despite his fame and accolades, Mendes thanks his parents, sister in Pickering, Ont. and close friends who he says all treat him the same since his career has skyrocketed: “I’m still the same Shawn to them that I was ten years ago.”

Over the past several years, the Toronto-native has worked with Ed Sheeran and Justin Timberlake, which is a far cry from him starting out his career, covering songs on the now-defunct micro-video app Vine back in 2013.

“When they truly love what they do , they just want to teach,” he said referring to them as mentors. “All three of them are like that to me.”