The best motivational podcasts to fill your feed

Need a little audio pick-me-up every morning? Motivational podcasts can be a great way to start your day, whether you’re looking to improve your productivity at work, meet your fitness goals, or just become a better human. On that note, here are the best motivational podcast to listen to in 2023.

The best motivational podcasts

Life Kit

NPR podcasts are some of the best podcasts out there, and the short Life Kit podcast is perfect for a little self-improvement on the go. It covers topics ranging from creating a better to-do list to building and maintaining friends as an adult. There are more than 600 episodes as of 2023, so rather than listening to them in order we recommend picking and choosing relevant topics for you. No matter what you choose, you’ll find the motivation to take on new tasks or improve your existing habits.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

How I Built This

Looking for a podcast for motivation in your small business? How I Built This with Guy Raz is an interview podcast with CEOs and founders of some of the biggest companies in the world. in it, guests outline the decisions and sacrifices they made on their way to the top. Most people won’t reach the same level of success, but it’s a nice business-oriented podcast for a little workplace inspiration.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

How to Fail

Tired of hearing about everyone else’s successes? The How to Fail podcast does exactly the opposite. Host Elizabeth Day still gets some big-name guests, but the focus of the interview is on major mistakes they’ve made in their lives or careers, and what they learned from them. It’s a great motivational podcast for anyone who might be at a rough point in their lives since it shows that things can (and often do) turn around.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

The Happiness Lab

Motivational podcasts are often filled with esoteric advice, but for a more scientific approach, check out The Happiness Lab. Host Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness (and teaches a course about it at Yale), and each 40-minute episode is like a distilled lesson on how to feel physically happy. If that doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know what will.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Ten Percent Happier

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the motivational podcast above is Ten Percent Happier. Despite the similarity in titles, this one is more focused on the personal experience of journalist and author Dan Harris, who wrote a book by the same name. His philosophy is that happiness is a muscle that can be trained over time, and no methods are off the table: fitness, meditation, religion, psychedelics, and more.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Routines & Ruts

This next motivational podcast has finished, but there are more than 50 episodes across three seasons to catch up on, so it still earns a spot on our list. Each episode is a conversation about the moments in life when you’re in your flow, and others when things just don’t go right. Host Madeleine Dore pines over reader questions in a productive way, providing useful motivational advice, no matter where you are in your life.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Beyond the To-Do List

For a more work-oriented motivational podcast, Beyond the To-Do List is filled with tips and tricks to stay productive and motivated in the workplace. It’s an interview-style podcast with productivity experts, authors, and creatives who give insights on how to gain perspective on your goals beyond a simple list of tasks. Not every episode is about work, however, and many of the tips shared can also be applied to personal goals.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Food Psych Podcast

Fitness motivation podcasts are a dime a dozen, but most aren’t worth their weight in soy. The Food Psych podcast is the exception. Hosted by dietary nutritionist and journalist Christy Harrison, it attempts to heal your relationship with not just food, but also dieting and medicine. It’s a great general fitness podcast that will teach you tips on how to stay motivated in living a healthy lifestyle. After more than 300 episodes, it finished in 2023, but the host has a new podcast called Rethinking Wellness that’s a great follow-up.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts