This article shares 3 apps to get motivated every day, plus a bonus resource to check out too. I like to meditate daily with Headspace, listen to audio books on Audible, hear the highlights of those books with Blinkist, and get pumped for life with the motivational powerhouse Tony Robbins. I’ll share my favorite features and a few screenshots of each app, and why I use them. If you’re interested, please click through the links on our page and we’ll get a small commission, which helps us keep doing what we’re doing.
The 3 apps and a bonus resource:
Headspace
Headspace helps people meditate, and it's all the rage. They offer an audio meditation guide for every feeling you could be feeling. Happy, sad, stressed, how to be more present, how to sleep better, how to be more mindful, and tons more. Two British lads, Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, started Headspace in 2010, combining mindfulness with marketing. Their mission is “to improve the health and happiness of the world.” Sounds like a great place to get motivated every day!
Headspace is free for 2 weeks
You can start out with Basics 1, a 10 day series of short meditations—either 3, 5, or 10 minutes long. It’s free and you don’t have to put in a credit card. You can do it on your computer or download the app on your phone.
Pricing
You can give it a whirl with a free subscription for two weeks. Then it’s either $12.99/month or only $5.83/month if you pay for the full year all at once ($69.99). There’s only one package/level, the difference is just if you choose to commit for the year or pay monthly.
Total package
The paid subscription gives you access to all the meditations (full courses and one-offs at a variety of time lengths) as well as yoga-ish “Move Mode” videos, sound and music playlists to calm and to focus, and even mindful cooking/eating exercises. I think my favorite part is that every morning your phone gets a short notification message about breathing or putting things into perspective, etc. Kinda like a super chill fortune cookie.
Science-driven
I also like that they are big into research about mindfulness and the measurable effectiveness of Headspace in reducing stress, etc. They have an in-house scientific team of seven people, and, according to their own site, they’re part of over 65 studies from a variety of third-party researchers. So far the results are that it’s pretty effective! The average user has stress reduced by about 14% after 10 days of using Headspace.
An English Monk
Andy Puddicombe is the co-founder and the main voice behind most of the meditations (though they have a handful of other hosts, too). He first studied sports medicine, then quit and studied meditation for 10 YEARS. He traveled throughout Asia and was “ordained at a Tibetan monastery in the Indian Himalayas.” Then came back to England and eventually started Headspace as an organic extension of his private consultations to help others learn mindfulness and meditation. His cofounder was a client who worked in the advertising world.
Partnerships: they’re everywhere!
Headspace is everywhere, helping folks get motivated every day. Or just chill out. They’ve partnered with several major organizations, like 12 different airlines, Doctors Without Borders, the NBA, Nike, and I’ve even watched calming Sesame Street videos with my kiddo. They also have a Netflix show that launched in January 2021.
The new new-age
To me, Headspace feels like the new new-agey real deal. It is very realistic in its goals and explains everything very transparently. Your mind is full of stuff and will constantly wander—acknowledging that and just being aware of that is one of the main points of meditation. With the goal of clearing away the distractions to just do nothing but breathe. That’s it, in a nutshell; just breathe. But it takes consistency and guidance and encouragement to get to simple breathing, which is why having a daily app is so darn useful.
Get motivated every day 🙂
So, those are the basics about Headspace and why I think it’s a great app to get motivated and focused.
Audible Audio Books
If you’re like me and have a hard time sitting still, audio books are a great way to get motivated every day. While driving, exercising, or working on a DIY project, you can also take in a great book and learn. My favorite time to listen to audio books (or podcasts) is while doing housework, like the dishes or raking leaves. That said, if we learn anything from Headspace, above, it’s to cut out distractions and multi-tasking… so just use your judgement.
Books, podcasts, and more
Audible offers books, podcasts, and original content, ranging from the Obamas’ books to Harry Potter to the classics. Their original content includes documentaries, plays with soundscapes, and other scripted shows. They also offer a few different languages, mainly Spanish and Chinese, with some titles in French, German, Italian, and Portuguese.
The Best Audiobooks for Entrepreneurs
Here’s a curated list of The Best Audiobooks for Entrepreneurs. Many of them are written by women, and most of them are read by their author. I like it when the author reads the book because it just feels like you get a better sense of what they are trying to say—because they’re saying it themselves!
Listen across devices
Download the app to your phone, tablet, etc. You can listen across several devices, including Alexa or Firestick. Just say, “Alexa, play [the book name] from Audible.” You can bluetooth your phone into your car, or some cars even have Audible as a built in feature. On the app, there’s a button to go into “car mode,” so that the interface is very simple with just three big buttons to play, bookmark, or go back 30 seconds.
Listen and read along with Whispersync
They have a feature called Whispersync for Voice on Kindle that allows you to also read the text. You can switch back and forth between reading when you have time and listening otherwise, or you can read along to the audio and it will highlight the words as you go. They say this helps with “engagement, comprehension, and retention.” I could see the read-along-highlights being especially useful if you’re learning to read in another language.
Plans
You can try Audible for free for 30 days. After that, the way it works is by monthly subscription. The subscription includes unlimited listening from their Audible Plus Library with thousands of titles. But premium titles like New York Times bestsellers are going to cost ya. Premium titles cost around $20-45 per book. Or one credit, see below.
Pricing
Audible Plus costs $7.95/month and includes unlimited use of the included library. Audible Premium Plus costs $14.95/month and includes the library plus one credit that will purchase any premium title. Take a look at the list of premium books, and if you think you’ll want one, the more expensive package is easily worth it. And if you want more than one premium title per month, you also get 30% off the sticker price by having the premium plan.
Blinkist
“Fit learning into your life,” reads their homepage—sounds like another great app to get motivated every day. If listening to 20 hours or 40 hours of a book on Audible doesn’t work for you, you can cut to the chase with Blinkist. Their “expert readers distill into short Blinks” all the highlights for you to read or listen to in just about 15 minutes. They’ve got over 4,500 books on their curated list, and it’s always growing.
Non-fiction section
Importantly, they only do non-fiction, like biographies, guidebooks, self-help, and inspiration for entrepreneurs. In an FAQ question, they put it this way: “Non-fiction is a bit like a table: a careful look reveals its main parts, how they fit together, and how each element contributes to the piece’s overall function. Writing a clear, outlined description of the table works in part due to its very nature. Fiction, on the other hand, is teeming with sub-plots, ambiance, and metaphor – it’s a lot more like a painting than a table. And how do you outline a painting? Well, we’ll get back to you when we’ve figured that out!”
The interface
Once you choose a few Blinks, the app easily navigates between them. And once you’re in a blink, it toggles between audio and text easily. You can also read along the text with the audio, like Audible suggests above. If the Blinks aren’t already short enough for you, you can adjust the reading speed in .25x increments, starting from 1.0 as the normal, natural speed. I found 1.25x to be palatable, but anything faster was just too fast for me. You can slow it down, too. It’s also nice that you can keep the app going on your phone while you’re in other apps.
Shortened podcasts = shortcasts
In addition to book Blinks, they’ve come up with Shortcasts—yep, podcasts distilled down to… short podcasts. A speaker from Blinkist introduces the podcast and connects longer bits of dialogue from the actual podcast guest(s).
Full audio books
Lastly, they do offer full audio books, but only a handful compared to the number of Blinks. And the audiobooks cost extra—usually $5–25. They're mostly pretty short books, around 3 hours, though some go above 10 hours.
Pricing
They offer a free 7 day trial—which will automatically convert into the yearly subscription. You have to enter your credit card, so be sure to set a reminder to cancel if you just want to try it out. The yearly subscription costs $99.99, or $8.34 / month. If you’d rather pay month to month, it’s $15.99/month.
Nuts and bolts
If you’re short on time but want to get motivated every day, I think Blinkist is a great option to get the nuts and bolts from a bunch of good books. You can absorb motivational books or just learn something and feel good about that!
Tony Robbins
We included Tony Robbins as a bonus resource for this article! He’s a motivational speaker that has been inspiring people since the 80s. VHS tapes, DVDs, travel experiences, books, and his bread and butter: speaking to huge live audiences. He’s a big warm guy that can be a little intense, but he has some really great ideas to get motivated every day.
Get motivated every day
He covers health, finances, relationships, and more, focusing on improving your psychology and the assumptions you make about yourself to achieve what you might not think is possible. He’s also donated millions of meals through Feeding America and the Tony Robbins Foundation. And as an entrepreneur, he’s invested in a bunch of successful companies, and been recognized by several publications for his work.
The apps
Searching “Tony Robbins” in the app store will bring up Breakthrough, Experience, Money, and QuoTR. You can also find RPM: Master Your Focus, made by Robbins Research International. Separately, on TonyRobbins.com, you can purchase several different programs that are DVDs but also available through the Breakthrough app—read on.
Tony Robbins Breakthrough app
If you download the Breakthrough app for free, that’s where you’ll find all the programs from his website. Ultimate Edge for self-improvement, Time of Your Life to make time for what matters most, Ultimate Relationship Program to create lasting passion; a total of nine different programs.
Most of these programs are 10-day courses with about an hour or so of listening each day. Most of the courses also come with 30-page workbooks to really work through and exercise the ideas. Once you download the app, you can get a taste of each course with access to the first couple sessions from each, without paying. If you’re ready to commit—this is how Tony keeps doing what he’s doing—all of the courses cost $249.99, each.
Tony Robbins Experience app
This app is for participating live in his online events. You can push buttons to “make some noise”, “say I”, “say yes”, and “laugh.” The sounds will then be shared with everyone else who has the app and has the sound on. If you watch his videos on youtube, he has a lot of crowd interaction, so this is a cool idea to extend to virtual events. It costs $4.99 to download.
Tony Robbins Money app
Money is about… money. The basic app is free, and it “provides personal wealth management solutions and tools to achieve the ultimate financial freedom in life.” There are a handful of videos and podcasts about investing and 401(k)s. It kind of steers you toward checking out the company ABk, America’s Best 401(k).
The big value seems to be the calculator to calculate your “financial dreams.” There are 5 pages of questions to input the basic expenses in your life, and then it gives you a couple different numbers that your investments should try to achieve. Even if you don't have investments or a 401(k), it's still a useful budget calculator and has helpful videos to get motivated every day about your finances.
Tony Robbins QuoTR app
This app creates nifty looking images with Tony Robbins’ quotes. It has a bunch of quotes in different categories, and it’ll make the quote look good with a nice font over a cool background photo. If you want to share inspiration on social media, this app makes it very easy.
Where to begin?
So, Tony Robbins… where to begin? To get motivated, I would recommend starting with his free content, on Youtube, his podcast, his apps, and just around the internet. He provides a lot of great content for free. Before you know it, you might be hooked! And when you’re ready to take it to the next level, then head to his online store for full courses, workbooks, and even dietary supplements.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading and I hope this article is helpful. I just tried to take a couple apps that I already know and love, and tried to explain and show their important features. They help me to get motivated every day, and I hope they can help you do the same!
Cheers,
Sam
All images are screenshots from each website or app, except where otherwise noted.
