The Top 48 Most Motivational and Inspirational Web Sites

Where do you get your inspiration?

As we approach Thanksgiving, I realize that it has been about a year since we started this blog about accomplishing the small goals which take us to our dream.

Through this year we have found the inspiration to keep going in a myriad of places.  It has been important to keep our enthusiasm high to prevent the thoughts of quitting from winning us over.

But the terms motivation and inspiration can mean different things to different people.

In honor of this Thanksgiving I decided to put together a comprehensive list of web sites where we can find inspiration or motivation to help keep us moving toward our dreams.

The sites listed below represent the many different places where we might find inspiration on the Internet.  This list is not in any particular order, but if you want to let me know which ones you feel are the top 10 – I can always rearrange the order.

Here is my list of the 48 Most Motivational and Inspirational websites  on the Internet -

1. TED – www.ted.com
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading through their video website. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

2. The Creativity Portal – www.creativity-portal.com
An inspirational how-to website for artists, writers, and creativity enthusiasts at all skill levels featuring free prompts, insightful articles, and hand-selected instructional Web resources on hundreds of topics to encourage the exploration of personal creativity.

3. Mama Gena – www.mamagenas.com
The website for Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts for the training of women of all ages to use the power of pleasure to have their way with the world.

4. Belief Net – www.beliefnet.com
Beliefnet is the largest spiritual web site. They are independent and not affiliated with any spiritual organization or movement. Their only agenda is to help people meet their spiritual needs with a wide variety of resources for anyone of any faith.

5. John Wooden – www.coachwooden.com
This is the website of John Wooden, who coached UCLA to a remarkable 10 national basketball championships in 12 years. Wooden is a man of character, conviction, decency, and straightforwardness. He offers his pyramid for success on his website. He is so beloved that he was invited to speak at TED.

6. Academy of Achievement – www.achievement.org
The American Academy of Achievement’s website has extensive collection of exclusive, first-person interviews with its honorees is available to parents, teachers and students.  The online Virtual Museum also features a Gallery of Achievement that includes video footage of insightful discussions.

7. Jack Canfield – www.thesuccessprinciples.com
Jack Canfield is affectionately known as “America’s #1 Success Coach”. He has studied and reported on what makes successful people different. In this is part of his website he offers free resources from his book, The Success Principles: How To get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be.

8. The Comfort Queen – www.comfortqueen.com
This is the website of Jennifer Louden who is considered the contemporary voice of women’s comfort and best-selling author, personal coach, and speaker who provides women with the information, inspiration, and tools to create lives they love.

9. Laughter Yoga International – www.laughteryoga.org
Laughter Yoga is an exercise routine for a complete well-being workout.  It was developed by Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India. A worldwide phenomenon with more than 6000 social Laughter Clubs in about 60 countries, this is their website full of ways to Laugh For No Reason.

10. Debbie Ford – www.debbieford.com
Debbie’s first three books, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Spiritual Divorce and The Secret of the Shadow, are still known as groundbreaking, pioneering work in emotional and spiritual education. This is the mediation portion of her website where she offers 4 free audio meditations.

11. Light A Candle – www.gratefulness.org
Part of the Gratefulness website where you can light a candle for special someone and view candles left by others. Every day thousands of people from all over the world light virtual candles at this website.

12. You Can Heal Your Life – www.healyourlife.com
HealYourLife.com is the fastest growing personal growth and self-help Web site. They invite you to stop by when you need to regroup, recharge, and reconnect with your own magnificence. Check out the section on Inspiration.

13. World of Inspiration – www.worldofinspiration.com
A website devoted to Inspirational quotes

14. Conservation International – www.conservation.org
The website of Conservation International (CI) showcasing their tireless efforts to ensure a healthy and productive planet for us all.

15. KIVA: Loans That Change Lives – www.kiva.org
Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe. They let you loan money to low income entrepreneurs for the sake of alleviating poverty. Just stopping by this site will inspire you to go after your dreams

16. The World Wide Online Meditation Center – www.meditationcenter.com
The Online Meditation Center is a user-friendly site, created to provide clear, easy, concise meditation instruction to people everywhere.  Guided meditations are available too.

17. Humor At Work - www.mikekerr.com
The website of Mike Kerr, the president of Humor at Work. Michael helps organizations become more successful by using humor in the workplace to manage stress, boost morale, inspire creativity and improve customer service. His website is all about humor.

18. Planet Billboard – www.planetbillard.com
This web site showcases award winning filmmaker – photographer – writer George Billard’s video and photography from around the world. In 2003 he created the international A&E Television series The Well-Seasoned Traveler. 

19. Tom’s Shoes – www.tomsshoes.com
This is the website of TOM”S shoes. TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need.

20. Inspiration Peak – www.inspirationpeak.com
The website of one of the Internet’s most beautiful collections of inspirational quotes, poetry and short stories. Updated with an inspirational message every week.

21. Explore Faith – www.explorefaith.org
A website community of faith dedicated to sharing beliefs and experiences with anyone seeking answers to spiritual questions.

22. Live Hope Love – www.livehopelove.com
This website shares the experiences of poet and writer, Kwame Dawes. It illustrates his experiences and conversations with people affected by HIV in Jamaca.

23. TSTN: The Success Training Network – www.tstn.com
The Emmy-award winning website for personal development and life-changing information.

24. The Big Picture – www.boston.com/bigpicture
A website dedicated to the news stories in large photographs from the Boston Globe.

25. Where In the Hell Is Matt? – www.wherethehellismatt.com
The website of Matt Harding, an Internet celebrity known as Dancing Matt for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various international locations.

26. Zen Habits – www.zenhabits.net
The Zen Habits bog is one of the top 100 blogs in the world and is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, and find happiness.

27. Get Rich Slowly – www.getrichslowly.org
A website devoted to sensible personal finance by sharing stories about debt elimination, saving money, and practical investing.

28. Post Secret – www.postsecret.blogspot.com
A website gallery of postcard-sized images posted anonymously to unveil a secret. Shared confessions in art form.

29. Seth Godin – www.sethgodin.typepad.com
The website of business and marketing author Seth Godin who popularized the phrase permission marketing. His blog is the go-to for business marketing information.

30. John Assaraf – www.johnassaraf.com
The business and success resources website by the international best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur John Assaraf.

31. Meditations For Women – www.meditationsforwomen.com
A meditation website for women helping empower women toward success, self discovery and inner awareness.

32. Life – www.life.com
Life magazine online claims to have the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the Web at their website.

33. Poetry Daily – www.poems.com
The Poetry Daily website is an anthology of contemporary poetry. Each day, they bring you a new poem from new books, magazines, and journals.

34. A 1000 Things to Do Before You Die – www.1000things.com
This website is run by a team of designers photographers and writers who share a passion for living. They travel around the world investigating reviewing and photographing the best experiences life has to offer while reminding us, Do you have a list of 1000 things to do before you die?

35. Travel Around The World In 80 Clicks – www.traveladventures.org
After years of traveling, Boris Kester decided to make his pictures and stories of his extensive travel experiences available to the world.

36. The 4 Hour Work Week – www.fourhourworkweek.com
The website of Timothy Ferriss, who was nominated as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Business People of 2007, and an author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek.

37. National Geographic – www.nationalgeographic.com
The website of one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history.

38. The National Gallery of Art – www.nga.gov
The website for national art museum in Washington, D.C. The Gallery’s collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile ever created by Alexander Calder.

39. The Artful Writer – www.artfulwriter.com
The Artful Writer website is published by Craig Mazin and Ted Elliott and features information, theory and debate for the professional screenwriter.

40. Earth Protect – www.earthprotect.com
Earth Protect is a leading social networking environmental web site for the uploading of user videos and films on environmental issues and solutions. Their hope is that as people and their organizations worldwide become aware, informed and committed, they will be empowered to take action to protect the Earth and achieve a sustainable and healthy environment.

41. Oprah’s Soul Series – www.oprah.com
A portion of Oprah’s website dedicated to guests and callers about the evolution of the soul.

42. World Prayers – www.worldprayers.org
The objective of this website is to gather the great prayers written by the spiritual visionaries of our planet into an online database representing all life affirming traditions. Many of these prayers have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years. Others are from spiritual contemporaries in today’s global fabric.

43. Self Growth – www.selfgrowth.com
A website dedicated to Self Improvement and Personal Growth. Their mission is to provide information ranging from Goal Setting and Stress Management to Natural Health and Alternative Medicine.

44. The White Rabbit – www.thewhiterabbit.com.sg
This is a website for the The White Rabbit restaurant and it has to be one of the coolest designed websites around. Are you a graphic designer or web designer looking for inspiration? Check this site out.

45. Earth Cam – www.earthcam.com
The Earthcam website features locations around the world via web-cam.  If you are yearning to travel but don’t have the time or the budget, then you can search for your location and view it live via web-cam.

46. Project Gutenberg – www.gutenberg.org
The Project Gutenberg website is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.

47. The Marine Mammal Center – www.tmmc.org
The website of the Marine Mammal Center where through rescue and humane treatment of ill, injured, or orphaned marine mammals, they return healthy animals to the wild.

48. 8 Women Dream – www.8womendream.com
A dream achievement project showcasing 8 women as they attempt to complete a dream by November 2010. Site is packed with motivational and inspirational tips by the 8 women as they discuss what it is like to go after their biggest dream.

What did I do towards my dream this week?  I went out and found inspiration for all of us to continue on the path towards our dreams and I updated our motivational videos on 8 Women Dream.

What websites or blogs do you find inspirational or motivational?

I am thankful that you keep coming to this blog – Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Catherine

(Catherine’s dream is to be a motivator and published writer. She is testing her theories on motivation with this blog and the seven other women who have volunteered to be a part of her dream project. Catherine also writes about her life as a mom at the blog A Week In The Life Of A Redhead. Someday, she would also like to be invited to speak at TED.  Catherine usually writes the weekly motivation posts which are published late Sunday evenings for the following week)

DREAM GOAL:  TO GET 8 WOMEN DREAM ON ELLEN AND/OR OPRAH FOR THEIR 2010/2011 SEASON

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