In the past six years or so I’ve spend perhaps too much time reading personal development books and blogs. Now that I’ve spent all this time finding the best resources and most inspiring people to follow, the least I can do is to share this information with you so you can get straight into it.
This ’25 Must-Read Personal Development Blogs For Driven Women’ list is pretty hot, but by no means a complete one (and I’d appreciate any comments or additions you may have in the comments below). It’s based on the following criteria:
– high traffic sites featuring high quality personal development articles
– sites I personally like – this list is somewhat subjective. I left some high traffic sites off the list simply because they don’t resonate with me, they feel too ‘pushy’ or I found them old fashioned.
– couple of exceptions to the high traffic rule are newer sites with inspiring bloggers who are up-and-coming. I want to keep this list fresh and interesting, not repeating every other list that is out there. So you’ll find some new sites you haven’t discovered yet.
– sites created by both women and men, but clearly with a style and content that resonates with most women.
This list is aimed at ambitious women who:
– want to live their passion and bring out their true self
– is looking to make an impact and do meaningful work
– value balanced and healthy lifestyle and stress free living
– is looking for inspiring, contemporary, current, fresh, honest and relatable advice and content
The topics cover a variety of areas for personal development, feeling great everyday, creating abundance, building a wealth mindset, achieving goals, building the life you want, defining the success you want, handling different roles of being a mother, going on an adventure or becoming more mindful and conscious.
The list of personal development blogs comes in no particular order.
This is a great blog for everyone who accepts that our happiness and performance is directly linked to our daily habits. Topics range from nutrition, exercise and happiness to meditation and relationships.
This is one of my personal favourites. Blog teaches you to be more mindful, simplify your life, live in the present and be grateful.
Marie is simply wonderful! She inspires you to go after your dreams (we concur), teaches you how to increase your income and how to become your happiest and most loving self. Her videos are high quality and fun to watch, with great advice and inspiration.
Here’s another female firecracker. Compared to Marie, Danielle is more rock’n’roll, pop culture and eastern mysticism. She talks about finding your joy, living in the light and self love. She’s simply unmissable!
Luminita Saviuc sheds a light on life’s hidden truths, observations on the human condition and how to access our infinite selves in our daily lives. ‘15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy‘ shared 1.3 million times (!) and she’s now turning the topic into a book.
This is actually newsletter you need to sign up, but totally worth it. He writes about science-based ideas for mastering your habits and living an optimal life. Articles cover areas such as how to beat procrastination or overcome your inner fears and actually follow through on what you set out to do. DrivenWoman kind of stuff!
This life coach couple writes about proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love and peace. Ah, wouldn’t we all want exactly that! Expect topics such as reducing stress, working better, relationships, being mindful. Their videos are lovely too.
If you want to make an impact, this is a good place to start connecting with like minded people. Chelsea Dinsmore encourages you to change the world by doing the work you love. The late Scott Dinsmore created an amazing global community believing the fastest way to do the things you don’t think can be done is to hang around people already doing it. His wife continues his work and this brilliant blog.
We women often shy away from money. When you live a balanced life your finances also need to be in balance. And for abundance, money is an essential tool. Let’s update our money mindset and let better personal finances to propel us into freedom to do the things we love.
Celestine Chua’s style is charming and modest and she uses short videos to spice up her posts about self-awareness, goals, productivity, wealth and more. She has an extensive selection of free e-books with tittles promising a lot. I haven’t downloaded any, but if you do, please let me know what you think.
I love her frank, down to earth style. Posts include a lot of links and topics range from homeschooling, choosing your career, productivity and entrepreneurship. I particularly enjoyed her ‘Blueprint for a Woman’s Life‘ post, tongue in cheek perhaps. Will make a note to write our DrivenWoman version of said topic…
I read Chris Guillebeau’s book ‘The $100 Startup’ some years ago and immediately started following his blog. His style is very personable, and topics cover entrepreneurship, personal success, travel hacking (he visited all 193 countries in the world) and not living by the norms.
Barrie Davenport has great advice on personal success, finding your passion and forming better habits. She discusses midlife crisis, body image and becoming a writer.
Finerminds by Mindvalley
Consciousness, happiness, wellness, spirituality and the power of mind are just some topics covered in this beautifully organised blog. The Mindvalley team is very inspiring, resourceful and connected. It’s time to check out this blog if you are not yet familiar with it!
Tina Su’s personal development blog has become very popular and features several authors. Posts cover topics such as calmness, mind, clarity, anxiety, depression, happiness and motivation. Some posts are beautifully personal.
Legal Nomads is really a travel blog, but Jodi Ettenberg’s personal journey from a top NYC lawyer to a world traveller, food travel blogger and public speaker deeply inspired and affected me three years ago when I was reaching out to interesting women who were living their lives to the full. This was leading up to co-founding DrivenWoman. If you are dreaming about adventure, check out this sweetly authentic blog.
A wonderful blog about the power of simplicity by Courtney Carver. She believes simplicity equals love, and who could really disagree with that!
Simona believes in kindness, solitude, helping others to succeed, simplicity and truth. She covers areas such as spirituality, consciousness and universal intelligence.
Gretchen Rubin is an author of several best selling books, including ‘The Happiness Project’ where she tests different happiness and personal development methods for one year. She writes about creating positive habits and finding happiness in the everyday life.
Deepak’s work really resonates with me, so he’s blog is definitely on this list. We did the’s ’21 Day Meditation Challenge’ with the DrivenWoman members and enjoyed it very much. His teachings are simple and spiritual.
Lolly is a leadership coach and focuses on personal development from a leadership angle.
Mary Jaksch helps you to unwind stress and find happiness. She’s a zen master and has produced a great video helping people how to start meditating.
You can’t but love Niyc’s energetic, life loving and always positive style. She’s a positive psychologist MSc, female success coach and soon to be Hay House published author. Just following what she’s up to gives you a huge energy boost every day!
Kelly Pietrangeli is on a mission to help mothers to find a better balance between kids and everything else. If something is not working, the key is to identify it and then take action to change it! Expect goal setting and great tools.
Molly Gunn is the editor of this brilliant blogizine that’s not about perfect parenting, but about allowing yourself to be the woman you truly are, in the midst of motherhood. It’s a space for women to come together and put their hand up to say, it’s not all going so smoothly but that’s ok.
If you enjoy these personal development blogs then you will also love DrivenWoman’s blog! We cover a range of topics for ambitious women. If you want help defining your own kind of success and how to take small steps towards your goals (even if you don’t know exactly what you want yet), you’ll enjoy reading our weekly posts. Please do add any other you love in the comments below:
CommentMarie Forleo’s blog is great. Thanks for the great list.
Thank you for putting this list together. I came across your page by looking for blog post on women in personal development. Trying to figure out why there are so few women that are working in personal development based on science. While looking for it I found your website and blogpost and you should add yourself to your list. Really well done!