What do you turn to when you’re feeling down? What do you use as motivation to help you back up when someone or something has tackled you to the ground? YouTube is a great place for entertainment and even for education. It also happens to be the perfect place to find inspiration when you need it most.
It’s easy to want to turn away from life as you knew it and want to start over. No matter how discouraged you might feel, though, something as simple as a short video with music, speakers and visuals can change your mind pretty quickly.
Check out these six motivational videos on YouTube to get you back on your feet and reignite your passion for the things you want to achieve. No matter how awful you might be feeling right now, you won’t feel the same after watching these. We’ve included a memorable quote from each to give you a taste of what you’ll find.
1. “Change Your Mind”
Many of the ultra-successful people you know and love may have been destined to fail, and probably would have, if they had simply listened to the negativity of the people around them and given up. People like Abraham Lincoln. Albert Einstein. Even Walt Disney.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case, you’ve failed by default.” –J. K. Rowling
This video features a montage of text quotes and snippets from the motivational commencement speeches of successful individuals like Denzel Washington and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2. “If Today Were the Last Day of My Life”
Before he lost his battle with cancer in 2011, Steve Jobs gave a talk about the way facing death changed the way he saw the world – and can change the way we all see the world, no matter how many more years we might live.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”
If the words don’t get you, the piano accompaniment will. Today may not be the last day of your life. But it could be. You never know.
3. “Chase Your Dream”
There’s a big difference between a dream and a goal. A dream is something you hold a safe distance away from yourself, something you can never truly reach. If you want it badly enough, though, you can work to turn that dream into a goal.
“Most people, they raise a family, they earn a living and then they die. They stop growing, they stop working on themselves, they stop stretching. They stop pushing themselves.”
You don’t have to be like “most people.” Whatever dream you used to have that you think you’ve given up on, it isn’t too late to stand up and start chasing that dream again. There’s no such thing as “too late.”
4. “Never Quit”
We all make mistakes, or we have in the past, or we will in the future. This is no excuse for telling ourselves we can’t do what we want to do. It’s no reason to allow ourselves to believe we don’t still have dreams worth going after.
“Your life is not where you want it to be … you messed up, or you’re doing good, but you can’t find a way to get to ‘great.’ Just because you failed doesn’t make you a failure.”
We all have our reasons for wanting to give up. Life can be discouraging. It throws things at us we don’t expect to ever have to deal with. Feeling like we’ve failed is not something anyone wants to experience. But the difference between someone who will succeed and someone who won’t is that the person who is destined to succeed never quits, even when it’s tempting to give up.
5. “The Definition of a Champion”
What does hard work mean to you? What do success and failure mean to you? Successful individuals seem to agree that the only way to fail is to never bother to face the challenge at all.
“If you really want to become your best, push yourself in whatever you’re doing, as hard as you possibly can, and you will find results.” –Tim Tebow
You might not be a die-hard sports fan, but that doesn’t mean this montage of motivational pep talks from successful professional athletes won’t still motivate you to reach for dreams you have yet to believe you can achieve.
6. “If I Should Have a Daughter …”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQgz2AhHaQg
“But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.” –Sarah Kay
This video shows a portion of Sarah Kay’s TED Talk about words she would say to her daughter, filled with reminders of how cruel the world can be but how we can’t be afraid to take a few leaps and experience it anyway.
Watch this video when you feel discouraged. Watch it when you feel torn down and stomped on. Watch it when you’re having a good day, even, to remind yourself that everyone needs to hear kind words every now and again, even if you can’t always see it on their face.
As these videos and more will remind you, it doesn’t matter where you are right now. It doesn’t matter how many people have already told you that you will never achieve your dream. It doesn’t matter how many people there are that are better than you. It doesn’t matter how many people try to knock you down and make sure you stay down. You can get back up. You should. And you will.
There is a reason many popular songs, movies and videos have powerful inspirational messages in them. Life is hard. We all need extra motivation here and there to get through the hard times. If you are feeling motivated after watching these videos, pass this article along so others can feel motivated and re-energized, too.
