By Jennifer Koebele
Personal growth and development is an important aspect of the field of psychology. People turn to personal growth and development to strengthen self-esteem, improve health and build wealth. By studying personal development experts, undergraduate psychology majors can develop skills helpful whether they pursue careers as psychologists, counselors, life coaches or educators in the field. This list of 30 Most Inspiring Personal Growth and Development Blogs covers a variety of personal development disciplines, making it a valuable resource for psychology undergraduates. Blogs on the list had both high Alexa Traffic Ranks and a high number of Facebook Likes.
Relationships
1. Live Bold and Bloom: Personal growth author and certified coach Barrie Davenport developed this blog because of her commitment to helping people make changes in their lives. Readers can learn how to shift their thinking through practical strategies and techniques. Article topics include developing self-confidence and improving self-esteem.
Highlight: Letting Go of a Relationship
2. Reflecting a Life: Elle Sommer’s blog, Reflect a Life, centers around spiritual, emotional and financial transformation. She shares tools and ideas with her readers for manifesting positive changes in each area so they can create successful lives.
Highlight: 6 Things You Can Do to Avoid Living a Life of Regret
3. Danielle LaPorte Collections: Danielle Laporte is a self-help guru and marketing expert who discusses issues such as kindness and consciousness on her blog. Through her writing, she inspires readers to delve into self-awareness while taking daily steps toward future goals.
Highlight: Here’s What to Do When Feeling Small. Reclaim Your Power
Health
4. Personal Excellence: In addition to being the founder of the Personal Excellence blog, Celestine Chua is a writer. Her passion for motivating people to reach their highest potential has helped her make Personal Excellence an international personal development resource. Major themes include Health, Wealth, Career and Love.
Highlight: How I Found My Place as a Female in Today’s World
5. Simple Mindfulness: Paige Burkes bases her Simple Mindfulness blog on the concept that happiness comes from within. The blog contains health, relationship and financial articles about practicing acceptance to create a fulfilled life.
Highlight: Rediscover the Lost Art of Being
6. Dumb Little Man: Jay White started the Dumb Little Man Blog in 2006, and now has over 17 million readers. His team publishes posts that include life tips for building success, money and happiness.
Highlight: 6 Lessons Learned From Over 600 Hours of Therapy
7. Zen Habits: Zen Habits blog creator Leo Babauta believes in finding simplicity in everyday chaos. Each week, over a million readers check out the updated articles about goal-setting, financial responsibility, health, family and happiness.
Highlight: Breathe
8. Wake Up World: The Wake Up World platform reaches over 1 million people with posts from independent writers encouraged to provide an alternative voice to mass media. It covers a wide range of topics such as physical health, spirituality, and social responsibility.
Highlight: Are You Waiting for Inspiration? Or Intuition?
Wealth/Success
10. Life Hack: This blog serves as a resource that covers all aspects of productivity and self-improvement. Its name stems from the term that describes effective tips that help people complete tasks efficiently. Life Hack is endorsed by a number of online media sites.
Highlight: 6 Habits of Highly Successful People Before Bedtime
11. Addicted2Success: Life Design Coach Joel Brown founded Addicted2Success in 2011 to share self-development stories to people on a global level. Readers can access motivational content such as audio, videos and interviews with leaders in the personal growth industry.
Highlight: 12 Ways to Turn Your Life Around in 12 Months or Less
12. Live Your Legend: Scott Dinsmore is the founder of Live Your Legend, a blog that helps readers to do the work they are passionate about through tools and experiments. It is an international community of people committed to finding what they love to do and doing it.
Highlight: 72 Hacks & Beliefs to Live & Work on Your Terms — from People Actually Doing It
13. Abundance Tapestry: Evelynn Linn is the creator of the blog Abundance Tapestry. The Certified Emotional Freedom Technique Practitioner, Intuitive Consultant and Vision Board Counselor felt inspired to start the blog as a platform to share her perspective about the beauty of life with readers. Her posts focus on affirmations, manifestation and intention.
Highlight: Abundance Life Coach
14. Pick the Brain: The readership for Pick the Brain has grown exponentially since its debut in 2006. The blog shares information about all subjects related to self-improvement, including Personal Productivity, Motivation, Self-Education, Psychology and Philosophy.
Highlight: 14 Ways to Procrastinate Productively
15. Sensophy: Jacob Sokol uses his blog Sensophy to motivate people in their 20s and 30s to make important life changes with a business spin. The blog includes articles and interviews that encourage readers to aspire to make educated business choices that allow them to create fuller lives.
Highlight: There is Such Thing as a Stupid Question
16. Expert Enough: The Expert Enough blog teaches readers how to learn more so they can be more. It provides strategies, techniques and case studies in a variety of disciplines such as health, fitness, psychology, technology and more, so its audience can gain new skills and become happier. Highlight: 72 Hacks & Beliefs to Live & Work on Your Terms — from People Actually Doing It
17. The Positivity Blog: Henrik Edberg of Sweden created The Positivity Blog as a way to share articles about personal growth and development. He writes about stress reduction and self-esteem building as well as how to simplify life for increased happiness.
Highlight: 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself
18. Brain Pickings: Brain Pickings is a reader-supported blog created by Maria Popova that provides thought-provoking content to its many readers. Although the blog covers a wide span of subjects, some examples include psychology, science, philosophy, and art. Brain Pickings is a creative, spiritual and intellectual blog that appeals to all types of personalities.
Highlight: A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus on Our Search for Meaning and Why Happiness is Our Obligation
19. Tim Ferriss: Tim Ferriss is an author and productivity guru. He entertains blog readers with personal stories designed to inspire deeper thinking and creativity. Ferriss’ blog also details a number of case studies that provide techniques and strategies for getting ahead in business.
Highlight: One Month with No Phone — How to Go Phoneless in a Major US City
20. Prolific Living: After leaving her career as an electrical engineer for the corporate world, Farnoosh Brock struggled to find happiness. She eventually left her 6-figure job to start Prolific Living, a blog that encourages readers to trust themselves in the journey to authenticity.
Highlight: How to Handle Negativity with the Power of Positive Affirmations
21. Powered by Intuition: In her Powered by Intuition blog, Angela Artemis teaches readers how to develop and rely on intuition to make good personal and career choices. Her blog posts teach specific techniques for strengthening intuition as part of a path to prosperity.
Highlight: What’s Your Unique Moneymaking Proposition?
22. Steve Pavlina: The tagline for Steve Pavlina’s blog is Personal Development for Smart People. Pavlina aims to help readers grow consciously by encouraging them to take responsibility for their own happiness. Themes include truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage and intelligence. Highlight: How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
Spirituality
23. Becoming Minimalist: Joshua Becker’s blog about achieving abundance through owning less. Readers will find articles with specific suggestions for simplifying life, making Becoming Minimalist a useful resource for those searching for concrete ways to live authentically.
Highlight: The 10 Most Important Things to Simplify in Your Life
24. Tiny Buddha: Lori Deschene runs this blog, which features stories about motivation, love and inspiration from readers around the world. Posts focus on how readers can apply simple wisdom about work and personal relationships to their lives on a daily basis.
Highlight: How Understanding Can Lead to Forgiveness and Fulfillment
25. Unlimited Choice: Amit Sodha’s blog is tagged The Ultimate Guide to Living Consciously. Sodha is a life coach who developed Unlimited Choice to challenge conventional thinking while inspiring others in their personal journeys. His posts about creating a conscious life are interspersed with a bit of humor.
Highlight: Perception Vs Reality
26. Café Truth: Husband and wife team Kevin Ruess Marshall and Alyssa Marshall started Café Truth to help readers attract peace and wisdom into their lives. The blog has three themes: Learning, Growth and Connection. Posts are written by life coaches who are experts in areas such as yoga, meditation and spirituality.
Highlight: Transmuting Negativity into Pure Presence
27. Purpose Fairy: After writing a viral personal growth post about personal trauma, Luminita D. Saviuc became a popular self-help author and speaker. Her Purpose Fairy blog strives to show readers it is possible to live a happy, meaningful life despite crises. The blog is a mix of articles with videos about creating purpose.
Highlight: 10 Things To Add To Your Health And Happiness To Do List
28. Zen Happiness Project Blog: Anthony Cernera has been a student of Zen Buddhism for the past several years. He writes about Zen Meditation in the Zen Happiness Project Blog. The project encourages readers to use Zen meditation as a tool to reduce stress and increase joy.
Highlight: Meditating in a Noisy Room
29. The Change Blog: Although Peter Clemens started The Change Blog to share how he overcame personal struggles, it has since evolved into a community blog. Readers from all over the world contribute stories about personal change to inspire each other. Popular topics include Mental Health, Self-Awareness and Mindset.
Highlight: 7 Life-Changing Lessons From My Life’s Lowest Point
30. The Master Shift: The team behind the Master Shift blog creates meditations to facilitate spiritual growth and healing. The goal of the blog is to utilize Cause Meditations as a catalyst for inspiring action, peace and unity.
Highlight: Destiny is a Matter of Choice — Solutions for a World in Crisis
About the Author
Jennifer Koebele, MS Ed. has spent more than 10 years writing about the field of education. As an educator with a master’s degree in education, Jennifer specializes in helping college students and young professionals reach their full potential through higher learning opportunities.