3 Ways Hannah Hart Practices Self-Acceptance Every Day

August 28, 2018

Do you have it all together?

Compared to your peers, you might think, “nope”—especially when you know someone who seems to have it all together; a person who seems to know exactly who they are and who they want to be. But the truth is, no one is born confident—it’s something you build.

Just ask YouTube sensation Hannah Hart. She’s best known for her series "My Drunk Kitchen" and the co-host of the self-help podcast, Hannahlyze This. But as Hannah told Shine, Internet fame doesn’t change everything—she’s still constantly working toward self-acceptance. Here, what she’s learned along the way.

As Told to Shine — Listen to the Audio Version

You may have seen me passionately talking about everything from food, to love, to gender identity on my YouTube Channel.

With over 2.5 million YouTube subscribers, I can’t tell you how many times fans or friends have assumed that I was that person—that I was born self-assured.

People see the public validation— the followers, the press, the fancy events—but what they don’t see is the life-long process of self-acceptance that I’m still working on.

Seriously.

So today, I want to share a little bit of my story and do some mythbusting on what that whole self-acceptance thing is about.

1. Praise is the only form of acknowledgement.

For a long time, I would judge my work and myself, all based on the external validation I got from other people.

That YouTube video I just worked my butt off on? It was only “good” if I got THIS many views on it, or had THAT many positive comments.

An idea I had was only “good” if someone else, besides me, also said it was a good idea.

Basically, I needed a whole lot of external praise to feel like I had truly accomplished something important.

And you know what? It was exhausting.

After years of feeling like I was “crowdsourcing” my confidence, I learned a key lesson that I now remind myself every single day.

Yes, it feels good to get praise from other people, the internet, the world— but I have to balance that out by giving myself kudos for what I’ve done.

I cannot rely on other people to fill me up; I need to be able to be my own hype-person.

Every time I put a lot of energy behind something, I think of three things that I love about what I’ve just done.

So now, every time I put a lot of energy behind something, I think of three things that I love about what I’ve just done. That way, I’m starting with what I’m proud of first, and any external validation is just a bonus.

2. There’s no perfect self-care routine.

Fun fact: I work from home, and I used to judge myself for needing to clean my apartment before I could get any work done.

I practiced “self-care” in other ways, dancing around my apartment, cooking with friends—but for some reason, I didn’t see my cleaning ritual as part of that practice. I only saw it as a distraction.

Part of self-acceptance is accepting the unique ways that we recharge.

Part of self-acceptance is accepting the unique ways that we recharge. We all have to practice lovin’ on ourselves however works best for our personalities. And for me, that means a clean kitchen sink.

3. To be confident you always have to be working on yourself—24/7.

I’m the first person to support ambition, but you have to find your balance.

I’m lucky to have some really amazing people in my life who’ve “gently reminded me” that the only way any of this works—the YouTube channel, my new show, podcast, connecting with fans—is if I get time to do nothing.

No meetings. No videos. No posts. White Space.

White Space in my week is where I recenter with myself. Truly, those days feel like I’m physically plugging into something to recharge.

White Space in my week is where I recenter with myself. Truly, those days feel like I’m physically plugging into something to recharge.

And I have to say, I resisted it at first. I resisted hard.

So much of my worth was wrapped up in “doing”—creating, output, publishing—that idle time felt like it was actually draining me of my worth.

And while I would encourage my team, my partner, friends to take time for themselves and recharge, it was really hard to do that for myself.

But it’s in those white space days that I connect with what’s really going on with me.

Now, I don’t believe we ever achieve full perfection. Our insecurities are a part of life and the sooner we learn to work with them, the better. I know it’s helped me.