Contents
Reddit often gets a bad rep for the less than desirable discussions that take place in parts of the site, but it’s also a source of some of the most unique, expert guidance on personal growth that can be found online. Redditors are a diverse and extensive community of single-minded experts with highly informed perspectives and experience (otherwise known as geeks).
For years, Reddit has opened my eyes to methods of self discovery and self improvement. In fact, the personal manifesto I read to myself every morning was originally based on a post in /r/GetMotivated.
What are Subreddits?
Subreddits are user generated (and user moderated) communities organized around specific topics. They provide a place for like-minded people to come together and discuss whatever is on their mind as it relates to a specific topic.
From procrastination to self control, task management to fitness, there are Subreddits for virtually any self improvement area where you have questions and are looking for answers. Across thousands of these groups, Redditors all over the world are setting goals, sharing stories, learning skills, and teaching each other how to get more out of life.
Most Subreddits are governed by a set of rules dictating how people are expected to interact with the community. If you plan to participate in these discussions, it’s crucial to first review the rules and make sure you act in alignment. Redditors are frequently blocked and banned from communities for violating the rules. Discussions are managed by volunteer moderators, who monitor the conversations and take action when lines are crossed.
The List: Top 10 Self-Improvement Subreddits
Self-improvement covers a vast surface area, and as a result, there are hundreds if not thousands of Subreddits out there aiming to help people improve themselves in one way or another. But the truth is that some Subreddits are better than others. The best Subreddits are the ones with a steady flow of regular content and rich, interesting discussion threads around them.
As someone who has spent many years thinking about self-improvement, I’ve come to use Reddit as a near constant source of information and feedback. Below are what I’ve consistently found to be the 10 most valuable self-improvement Reddit communities:
/r/GetMotivated
Subscriber Rank: 31
Subscribers: 16.6 million
Posts per Day: 20
Comments per Day: 802
Comments per Post: 40.1
As its name implies, /r/GetMotivated a place for people to give and receive the motivation they need to tackle those tasks that simply must get done. Content shared here can be anything from images, videos, text, music, and everything in between, although the most successful content is generally visual in nature. Perhaps the most common thing you’ll see on /r/GetMotivated are quotes and affirmations, two things we really love here at ALO. At 16.6 million subscribers, /r/GetMotivated is the largest subreddit on our list. This following draws some of the richest comment discussions you can find on Reddit, from the silly to the intriguing. It also includes real stories of people motivating themselves to perform better in class and take better care of themselves. It includes people asking questions and sharing advice based on their own experiences. /r/GetMotivated is home to a thriving community of people who want to learn and who want to achieve.
/r/getdisciplined
Subscriber Rank: 588
Subscribers: 650,000
Posts per Day: 21
Comments per Day: 150
Comments per Post: 7.1
Discipline is motivation at scale. An inspiring quote or framing of rationale might be enough to drive us to action a handful of times, but it takes discipline to put in the extra work consistently, even when don’t think it’s needed. /r/getdisciplined is a large subreddit in which subscribers share their experienced, practical advice on how to sustain discipline over a period of time. /r/getdisciplined is one of my favorite subreddits. Posts almost exclusively describe methods users have discovered in their desire to build and maintain the momentum get the most out of every day.
/r/productivity
Subscriber Rank: 728
Subscribers: 507,000
Posts per Day: 24
Comments per Day: 100
Comments per Post: 4.1
Productivity is a critical component of living a life outstanding, and /r/productivity is a large community of optimizers and maximizers—my favorite kind of people. These are the kinds of people who live mindfully, always on the lookout for better, more efficient ways of getting things done. For its size, it’s not as active as some of the other large subreddits on this list. You can expect to see a handful of posts every day along with some light discussion. I suppose it makes sense that a subreddit of productivity-oriented people would be less likely to put their time toward lengthy discussion threads on Reddit. Of course, the primary purpose of this community is to get and share unique and effective productivity tips. And are there a lot of tips? From keyboard shortcuts to calendar blocking, from goals setting to making lists and setting a sleep schedule, /r/productivity is a Subreddit for anyone interested in cultivating a mindset of stress-free productivity.
/r/lifehacks
Subscriber Rank: 63
Subscribers: 4.3 million
Posts per Day: 33
Comments per Day: 289
Comments per Post: 8.7
At the highest level, a life hack is simply a little known workaround for specific situations in life. In /r/lifehacks, you’ll find a community of people dedicated to the timeless idea that how one does anything is how one does everything. One of the many benefits of the internet is that it has democratized the experiences of all types of people, including skilled craftsmen and experts in their fields. This means that any of us can learn from their wisdom and find ways to apply it to our own lives. With over 4 million subscribers posting more than 30 times each day, you’ll find no shortage of creative solutions to some of life’s most frustrating problems.
/r/financialindependence
Subscriber Rank: 494
Subscribers: 790,000
Posts per Day: 18
Comments per Day: 549
Comments per Post: 30.5
Love of money is the root of all evil, but the personal finance gurus on /r/financialindependence don’t love money—they love the freedom that money buys. This subreddit is built around the “FIRE” lifestyle movement. FIRE stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early,” a feat that achieved by investing heavily in savings, investments, passive income streams, and other things as early and as aggressively as possible. If you’ve ever dreamed of dropping the 9-5 and instead spending your time on the work you actually want to do, this subreddit is for you.
/r/selfimprovement
Subscriber Rank: 870
Subscribers: 425,000
Posts per Day: 49
Comments per Day: 115
Comments per Post: 2.5
This really wouldn’t be a list of self improvement subreddits if we didn’t mention /r/selfimprovement. While many of the other subreddits listed here are places you can go to find inspiration and advice, /r/selfimprovement is the place where you can go to ask for help. Most of the posts you’ll find here are made by people struggling with some aspect of themselves or their lives and looking to the community for guidance. The discussion threads here are so positive and enlightening. Redditors posting here share information so private their own family might not even know, and the discussions that follow are rich and heartfelt. One of my favorite ways to use /r/selfimprovement is to search for a previously posted discussion about an issue I’m dealing with and read through the comment threads for a massive diversity of opinion. It’s not only useful, there’s also solidarity in knowing you’re not alone.
/r/QuantifiedSelf
Subscriber Rank: 18,319
Subscribers: 7,400
Posts per Day: 1
Comments per Day: 4
Comments per Post: 4
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. No one knows this more than the community at /r/QuantifiedSelf. Quantified self is another growing lifestyle movement focused around measuring as many aspects of our lives and activities as possible. In practice, QS can look a little like life-logging—tracking steps, places visited, mood changes, and so on. But in truth life logging is more about documenting and keeping records of life’s events, QS is about analyzing said events and using them to inform actions. This group is organized around the idea that the goal of measurement is to improve. So in this way, it’s very much a self improvement activity. This is one of the smaller subreddits we’re covering, and the volume of postings and discussion is relatively low. That said the quality and level of detail in the guidance shared here is in a league of its own.
/r/gratitude
Subscriber Rank: 21,271
Subscribers: 5,200
Posts per Day: 1
Comments per Day: 6
Comments per Post: 6
Epictetus once said, “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” Indeed, gratitude is an essential piece of the happiness puzzle. In fact, studies have shown that recording things about which you are grateful for consistently results in higher rates of happiness. Our internal dialogues tend to be so fixated on the things we don’t have, we lose sight of what we do have. Consciously creating and sticking to a regular gratitude practice is the only way to make sure you’re able to do this reliably. In /r/gratitude, you’ll find a community of people trying to create a regular practice of recording their gratitude. It’s inspiring to read through others’ gratitude posts and sometimes it makes you realize there might be people and relationships in your life that you’ve been taking for granted, too.
/r/ToastMe
Subscriber Rank: 1,139
Subscribers: 312,000
Posts per Day: 8
Comments per Day: 173
Comments per Post: 21.6
Reddit is often maligned as a source of hate-filled, inappropriate content. If you’ve not spent much time on Reddit, you might even think the same. And while there are certainly less friendly parts of Reddit, the amazing community at /r/ToastMe is bound to open your mind at least a little to the powerfully positive impact that Reddit can have on people. In this subreddit, subscribers who are in need of encouragement post pictures of themselves typically holding a sign bearing the subreddit’s name. Within the confines of /r/ToastMe, such an act is considered an invitation for commenters to shower the OP with genuine and incisive complements. Some of the commenters here are able to weave together extremely sincere and poetic statements of truth. While I’ve never posted here myself, I can tell by reading the discussions that oftentimes posters are hearing good things about themselves that they’ve never before been told. There’s something transformational about hearing good things about yourself.
/r/DecidingToBeBetter
Subscriber Rank: 681
Subscribers: 555,000
Posts per Day: 42
Comments per Day: 114
Comments per Post: 2.7
If you follow this site, you know that the journey of self discovery is a lifelong process of learning that you can choose to engage with or ignore. /r/DecidingToBeBetter is a subreddit of people who have definitively chosen to engage with their self-discovery, not only identifying areas of their lives that don’t meet their satisfaction, but also committing to real steps toward making changes in the right direction. Here, you’ll learn strategies employed by people from all walks of life to overcome some of the toughest (and not so toughest) challenges that aren’t unique to them in life. Reading these threads is not only inspiring but also cathartic. It highlights the shared experience of being human and reminds me that we are not alone in fighting the odds of life.
Conclusion
I hope this post exposed you to a Reddit community you might not have heard about before. In truth, there are countless “self-improvement” oriented subreddits out there. As you can tell from this list, the best ones will have a large number of active, like-minded followers, engaged with the community topic. In my opinion, Reddit is the internet’s best source of topic-based online discussion. Discussion teaches us so many things—not just about language and communication. It also teaches us how to listen, how to evaluate our situation, and how to make the best decision for ourselves.
