The Best Motivational Podcasts
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. 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 can be discouraging and disheartening at first, it can also become fuel for motivation. How To Fail is all about failure, but it teaches 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 failure and how we cope with it through interviews with people, including Dame Kelly Holmes and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, about how they managed to overcome failures, learn from them, and ultimately succeed.
Sisters of Defiance
Hosted by broadcaster Anita Rani and produced in partnership with wellness brand Ancient + Brave, Sisters of Defiance is a new podcast built around raw, honest conversations with women who’ve broken the rules and paid the price, or reaped the reward.
Each episode profiles a “sister of defiance”: women whose names are familiar but whose real stories rarely get told, from Dame Meera Syal and Emma Grede to Gisele Pelicot and Dame Zandra Rhodes. If you want your motivation served with grit rather than gloss, this is a compelling addition to the genre.
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 offers a very simple, yet useful concept: dedicating one hour each day to improving yourself and your life. Host Adrienne Herbert speaks to healthcare specialists, coaches, creatives, innovators and more each week about their routines and habits, aiming to highlight their ideas and apply 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 length make it both detailed and easily digestible to apply to your everyday life.
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. Many 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 in each episode, he discusses various 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.
RISE with Roxie
If manifestation and mindset work is more your thing, RISE is hosted by bestselling author Roxie Nafousi, whose book Manifest became a global phenomenon.
The podcast builds on that same philosophy, offering listeners practical tools and real talk to help them step into the life and version of themselves they actually want. It’s a great pick if you want your motivation with a side of manifestation rather than straight business hustle.
Optimal Living Daily
Optimal Living Daily is like a reader’s digest of motivational and self-improvement content. Each episode is kept short, typically around 10 minutes long, and provides you with narration of online blogs about personal development. It can help you with productivity issues and pushing yourself to try new things, covering all areas of life — from learning to play basketball to tips and disciplines on parenting. It also mentions 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.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
If there’s anyone with the ability to slap someone out of a slump, it’s host, lawyer and author Mel Robbins. The Mel Robbins podcast updates semiweekly and offers a number of things to improve your lifestyle or outlook on life, like 8 Things To Tell Yourself Every Morning or 6 Powerful Mindset Shifts That Will Change Your Life. Robbins also hosts guests on some episodes who are experts in the subjects they discuss. The podcast covers a range of topics from sexual intimacy to financial stressors, and with Robbins’ help and that of some of her psychiatrists, best-selling author and researcher friends.
