We all need motivation from time to time, and while friends and family cheering you on with a “you can do it!” can be helpful, sometimes we feel like we need advice from a different source. With the new year beginning, we’ve selected some of the best motivational podcasts to listen to and start motivating yourself to achieve more.
From podcasts to motivate your next career move to experts in the wellness world revealing their tips and tricks, read on to get inspired.
For more motivational inspo, check out our guide to the best self development books.
How To Fail
While failing is something that can be discouraging and disheartening at first, it can also become fuel for motivation. How To Fail is all about failure- but it still helps to teach you about succeeding in the end. The path to achievement is not always easy, and failure is something everyone experiences in their life, even if it isn’t easy to admit or accept it. Journalist and author Elizabeth Day’s podcast aims to discuss failing and how we cope with it, with interviews with people including Dame Kelly Homes and Phoebe Waller-Bridge about how they managed to overcome failures, learn from them, and then succeed.
The Happiness Lab
For many people, motivating yourself and achieving things brings a feeling of happiness. The Happiness Lab is all about being happy, and how we can go about reaching that feeling. Yale professor Dr Laurie Santos invites you to think about what you think makes you happy, and uses the latest scientific research and inspiring real-world stories along the way. “You might think more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations would make you happy. You’re dead wrong” reads the podcast’s synopsis on the show’s website, and The Happiness Lab promises to change how you think about happiness and challenge you to find your own path to being fulfilled.
The Power Hour
For a motivational podcast with a difference, The Power Hour podcast has a very simple, yet useful concept: dedicating one hour each day to improving yourself and your life. Each weekly episode sees host Adrienne Herbert speak to healthcare specialists, coaches, creatives, innovators and more about their routines and habits with the aim of bringing some of those ideas and applying them to our own lives. Motivation is the name of the game here, so if you’re looking to change career, pen a novel or train to run a marathon, the Power Hour podcast wants to help you achieve it. The hour-long lengths make it both detailed and easily digestible to apply to your everyday life easily.
The Diary of a CEO
Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of A CEO is another one of the best motivational podcasts there is, and sees the entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor explain how he managed to turn around his life after dropping out of university and being broke, and became a highly successful CEO. While the pod is about being a CEO and podcast, it also deals with how to motivate yourself to turn your life around. With different interviewees each week, Bartlett shares his (and his guests’) insights into the world of business, with its highs and lows, and how to keep persevering against the odds. As the name suggests, the podcast is kept as unvarnished and honest as possible, sharing the struggles and dark thoughts of someone trying to start a company without glossing things over. With over 200 episodes and counting, the show is going strong and is definitely worth checking out.
Want to know more? Check out our exclusive interview with him.
How To Be A Better Human By Ted
Everyone’s heard of TED Talks: the easily digestible lectures that rack up millions of views on YouTube from people from all walks of life, which can often be inspiring and motivational. But if you want a longer form, podcast version, you can listen to one of the many TED podcasts. Much of them can help with motivation, but How To Be A Better Human is all about being the best person you can be. Comedian Chris Duffy is the host, and each episode sees him discuss different topics for self-improvement and making changes to your mindset to push yourself to excel. He’s joined by a different guest each week, including some past TED speakers, to help with advice on improving both your mind and your body.
Optimal Living Daily
Optimal Living Daily is like a reader’s digest of motivational and self-improvement content. Each episode is kept short, usually around 10 minutes long, and provides you with the narration of online blogs all about personal development. It can help you with productivity issues and pushing yourself into doing new things, and all areas of life are covered: from learning to play basketball to tips and disciples on parenting. It also touches on the benefits of minimalism and clearing your life of unnecessary things that can drag you down. There are also suggestions on things to eliminate from your habits and mindset- for example, a recent episode is dedicated to explaining why perfectionism and trying to be totally flawless can be a serious negative and only perpetuate stress. This is a podcast to get you thinking about how you can improve yourself in ways that work for you.