365 DAYS PROJECT: AN INTERVIEW WITH VOICE ACTRESS TARA PLATT

Tara Platt is well known for her many voice over roles in video games and television shows, but beyond the microphone there is another project which is close to her heart, and has inspired countless others.

The 365 days project is a self awareness project that involves questioning who we are as individuals, figuring out what we love about ourselves, and questioning what our place is in the world. Platt started this project because she was feeling a little lost in her life, and so the idea of this project came to her as a way to better herself, acknowledge herself, and work on herself.

Platt said she really wanted this project to be about celebrating herself and who she is.

Platt started her 365 days project last Valentine’s Day, and she did it for a full year to this Valentine’s Day.

“I have to tell you it is so weird not waking up everyday and writing a word in on my outline now because I don’t know what to do with myself. I completed that idea of my project– Not that I don’t think it’s a good idea to continue throughout my life respecting myself, but as that idea of what the project was,” she said.

She also went onto explain how doing this 365 days project has changed her life.

“It absolutely did improve my life, there were there tangible sorts of outcomes in the sense that I noticed myself being nicer to myself, giving myself more leeway, and taking more time to care for myself. All those are very important things, that I started to notice as a direct result of me doing the project. It’s very hard to acknowledge that you love yourself, but by noticing the thing you love about yourself you give yourself more time for it, or you take the effort that’s necessary to embark on those things.”

Besides seeing the changes occur within herself, Platt also had a few light-bulb moments.

“There were also second-hand effects that I hadn’t noticed or thought about as much not only in my relationships with other people, and the effects it had on other people, but also the way it started to effect me as a human being that I wasn’t as conscious or cognitive of in my decision making process, and being able to own myself more and own the things that are important to me. I am starting to really realize who I am in the world, what my personal voice is in the world, and how to protect it rather then just giving up that power and wanting to please other people and to make them accept me,” she expressed. 

Platt covered many personal topics for her 365 days project and in order to keep them refreshing and relatable, she said she would sit down on on a Thursday night [since she would post her videos on the Friday] and mentally go through the week and see what she chatted about with friends, things that bothered her, and things that she was working on. She would then literally start talking about that in her video for the week. 

“I think people found it relatable only because I was actually bringing elements of my life into it. I wasn’t just hypothetically or esoterically speaking on a topic because I felt the topic needed to be talked about. I was talking about it because it had affected me, or I was thinking about it, or somebody had mentioned it or there was a reason for my personal connection to it,” she said.

Even though the topics were relatable for viewers, Platt mentioned that there was a topic that was hard for her to talk about.

“Dealing with death and loss, I’m still very uncomfortable with. Just because I have done the project and talked about that topic, it hasn’t eased that feeling of my inability to accept death, and that’s a really big thing for me, and I really have a hard time with that. Learning to accept death is still going to be my work as a human being for all the days of my life.”

On the flip side, there was a topic that was the most heartfelt for Platt to talk about.

“Self Care has been very important because I’m realizing how little I do that for myself. I am very big on caring for others, and I don’t do a very good job in caring for myself. So that was probably the most heartfelt.”

While the 365 days project has improved her life, she was unsure if she wished that this project existed when she was transitioning to adulthood. 

“I’ve always been a very introspective person in the sense that I try to examine who I am in the world, and I started reading psychology books when i was a teenager, just because I was fascinated. I think it’s utterly fascinating to learn who we are as individuals. So I’ve always been fairly inward looking, but I don’t know if I would’ve gotten the same benefits from going through the motions as a kid as I got as an adult, because the further I got into the project it became more difficult to find something that I loved about myself, and that I could celebrate about myself,” Platt said.

The 365 days project has been positively received by viewers, and Platt found it crazy that she didn’t get any negative comments on her videos.

“I didn’t really consider it when I started the project and there are so many trolls on the internet, and people behave that way, but maybe it was the type of people that were gravitating to the project, and I really only had great positive discourse. I mean these are just people that may not agree with me, but that is positive discourse in my mind. Just because we don’t have a meeting of the minds doesn’t mean that it’s a negative comment,” she said.

Platt did however share that she has gotten negative comments mostly on her Twitter account, and explained how she responds to them.

“The way that I have handled negative comments on Twitter before not for my project but just me as a human being, is either I just ignore them because fire needs fuel and if you don’t give it fuel it will just burn itself out. Or I work a little reverse psychology and then I thank them and I give them positive feedback rather than negative feedback.”

The biggest reward that Platt has experienced in going through with this project, was seeing how it affected and mattered to so many people.

“I actually had people from around the world that would reach out to me and comment, send me messages, ask me questions, and ask me to talk about particular topics and they want to know my take on it. That was not only humbling and flattering but really exciting to see that, what I was doing as a project for myself and for my own personal betterment actually mattered to other people.”

For those interested in starting their own 365 days project Platt shares a few tips.

Make the commitment to yourself-

First of all you just have to really, honestly make the commitment to yourself. I think that’s the easiest thing that people don’t really invest in. They say they are going to make the commitment, they believe that they are going to make the commitment- but they really HAVE to make the commitment. It’s almost like a new years resolution. The 365 days project is the most important thing that you do because it is your love letter to yourself.

You only get to live your life with you. You’re the only person that will ever have your experiences. People will come and go, animals will come and go, relationships will come and go but you will be the only human being in existence that will experience your life with you.

Make it fun for yourself-

I made up what my 365 project was. People should make it unique to them and show what’s important to them in the world.

You can visit Tara Platt’s Youtube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/thetaraplatt