10 Inspirational Songs to Boost Your Self-Esteem

Music soothes the savage beast. It can calm you, relax you, move you into a better mental space. Music can inspire you and even boost your self esteem.

We asked the Boldly Me community to recommend such inspirational songs that make you believe in yourself, feel better about yourself and who you are.

Then we created a playlist on both YouTube and Spotify for anyone who needs a quick "go to", a personal pep rally, if you will.

Here are ten songs from our playlist whose words we find to be inspirational, uplifting, and encouraging. These songs will cheer you up on a bad day, tell you to love yourself first AND... remind you that you are beautiful, just the way you are.

This song encourages you to "say what you wanna say". That you can let people bring you down because of their own issues, or you can BE BRAVE and speak out.

The Best Bit:

Don't run, stop holding your tongue

Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

Show me how big your brave is

This song lets you know it is OK to be imperfect. You don't need fixing. You're broken and you're beautiful.

The Best Bit:

The only way to live now is to know you're gonna fly

Don't listen to the lying liars and their lies

Rachel Platten wrote "Fight Song" to motivate herself not to give up, when the US music industry had rejected her for over ten years. So think of THAT the next time you want to give up.

The Best Bit:

Starting right now I'll be strong

I'll play my fight song

And I don't really care if nobody else believes

'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

This song speaks to the strength we have in us to know how awesome we are no matter what anyone else tries to say. Don't let others define who you are. That's YOUR job.

The Best Bit:

And I know that I deserve your love

There's nothing I'm not worthy of

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down

I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out

There are not a lot of words in Rise Up, but sometimes simple is the most powerful. All it takes is for someone who cares about you to reach their hand out to you and pick you up and start walking. And right now, Andra Day has her hand out.

The Best Bit:

you can't find the fighter

But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out

Move mountains

This song points out that if someone doesn't think you are beautiful, maybe just maybe, THEY are wrong and could do with a bit of changing. A lot of these songs seem to have a similar message: stop defining yourself by OTHER PEOPLE!

The Best Bit:

She don't see her perfect

She don't understand she's worth it

Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface

This song says stop trying to conform to get others to like you, because... DO YOU LIKE YOU? Plus, wouldn't you rather have people like you because of who you already are instead of what they think you should be?

The Best Bit:

Wait a second,

Why should you care, what they think of you

When you're all alone, by yourself

Do you like you? Do you like you?

This song wants to know who is trying to put you down? And who are THEY to judge?

The Best Bit:

Who says you're not star potential?

Who says you're not presidential?

Who says you can't be in movies?

Listen to me, listen to me

Who says you don't pass the test?

Who says you can't be the best?

Who said, who said?

Would you tell me who said that?

Yeah, who said?

This song pretty much says "get out of my way because I'm a bull in a china shop right now just try and stop me." It also wants to know what is wrong with being confident? It's also a rockin' action-packed video!

The Best Bit:

I used to hold my freak back

Now I'm letting go

I make my own choice

[Clean version:] Yeah I run this show

Can you guess what's said instead of "Yeah" in the explicit version? Hint: it starts with a B and rhymes with "stitch".

This song is a classic, and proves that low self-esteem is not a new thing. We've needed lifting up since, well,... since at least the 1980's.

The Best Bit:

Though you feel your heart break

You're only human, your gonna have to deal with heartache

Just like a boxer in a title fight

You got to walk in that ring all alone