Watch These 6 TED Talks To Change The Way You Look At Life In 2018

If you’re looking to get motivated, inspired, or take a good hard look at life through the eyes of some of the world’s best speakers, then look no further than TED talks.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, is an online database of hundreds of TED-sponsored talks on inventions to language to art and everything in between.

With more than 1,300 speeches available to watch online, you can find the perfect video that speaks to your current state of mind or even an idea you’ve been curious about.

Heading over to the website can be a little intimidating at first, so it’s best to ease into the binge-watching that will likely ensue once you log on. And with the New Year still fresh, we’ve compiled a list of the best 6 TED talks that are sure to get your gears grinding about life and the people around you this coming year.

Fill up your coffee mug, get comfy, and listen to these six amazing speakers talk about life like you’ve never heard before.

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are by Amy Cuddy

It’s a well-known fact that body language plays a huge role in how humans interact with one another. You can tell if someone is angry based on the posture of their arms, the furrow in the brow. You can see their sadness through the hunched stance of their back and lowered head. Without even realizing it, people put their emotions on display without ever opening their mouths. It’s a mostly unconscious action.

During her 2012 TED Global talk, Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy delves into more detail about how others perceive you based on your body language, and how you’re even influenced by your own body language.

Cuddy talks about how to become conscious of yourself, your body, and discusses a few powerful poses you can consciously make that will not only make a difference in how the world perceives you, but how you see yourself.

Go into 2018 with more self-confidence and self-awareness than year past and watch Cuddy share all about this unique form of communication.

Your Elusive Creative Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert

This one goes out to all of the creative minds out there, and to all of those who know and love someone who is creatively driven. For decades, even centuries, artists have long been revered as the “emotional” types, the romantics and those who honestly believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Their art is their expression, a direct correlation of how they view the world and the emotions they feel, which can be struggling to grapple with when your art isn’t received the way you hoped it would be.

Author of the film-adapted novel, “Eat, Pray, Love,” Elizabeth Gilbert tackles this idea of the creative, emotional risk in her 2009 TED Talk and how often creative minds get in their own way when it comes to emotional expression.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a creative individual, this talk gets down to the bare bones of what it means to be put on display emotionally, and how to grapple with that.

The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown

Vulnerability is not something that most people willingly like to display. It’s uncomfortable, and it often leaves you open to experience everything, including heartache, more openly and fully.

In her 2010 talk at TEDx Houston, University of Houston Professor Dr. Brené Brown takes on the hefty subject by exploring that uncomfortable feeling of being vulnerable and the effects it has on those who embrace that vulnerability.

Unlike what many might assume, Brown, doesn’t boast the typical jargon about vulnerability, but talks about how those who dare to be vulnerable are often happier for it, and more welcoming of love from others. It’s an interesting concept that many people talk about and a moving subject for those who just can’t seem to let down their walls.

Grab a cup of tea, sit down, and listen to Brown talk about how vulnerability doesn’t make you weak but makes you stronger, and maybe welcome 2018 with more vulnerability than ever before.

Feats of Memory Anyone Can Do by Joshua Foer

Memories can be tricky things. You can remember an event differently than your sibling remembers it and they can remember it differently than your parent, but it’s all the same memory. As you age, these memories change and shift. Imagination steps in to fill in the gaps where the mind hasn’t quite kept up.

You remember riding on a horse, but you don’t remember what color, so your imagination tells you it was white, even if it wasn’t. But what if you could train yourself to remember? And, more importantly, how do you make sure you’re living a life worth remembering?

In a quirky, satirical talk, journalist and author Joshua Foer talks in depth about competitive memories, the idea of a “mind palace,” and how all of this means nothing if you’re not living life to the fullest during his 2012 TED talk.

Foer takes the audience on an imaginative journey, weaving together a hilarious story for those present to participate in. Imagining and explaining that anyone can learn how to remember something, but not to take too much time dreaming up your perfect life that you forget to live it.

This year, focus on living and making memories, rather than living in memories and learn a thing or two about the great capabilities of imagination with Foer’s powerful talk.

The Puzzle of Motivation by Dan Pink

Everyone hits the ground running when a New Year begins, making resolutions and promises to be the best version of themselves, to work harder than they’ve ever worked before, and to make the New Year the best one yet.

But, as the weeks drag on, that momentum fizzles out almost as quickly as it started. How do you keep that from spreading to the work place, especially if motivation seems to be lacking?

New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Dan Pink explores all things motivation related in the workplace during his 2009 TED Global Talk. Pink discusses the effectiveness of both punishment and rewards in the work place, the differences in various types of motivators, rewards, and how business owners and leaders need to rethink motivation in the work place.

This TED Talk is applicable for everyone, both workers and bosses alike, who want to optimize their work space environment going into the New Year, and maybe learn a thing or two about motivation along the way.

How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek

There are leaders, there are followers, and there are those who lie somewhere in the middle, assuming their role depending on the situation. Throughout all of western history, great leaders have founded the country, incited change, lead movements, created world-changing inventions, and overall created the world we have today. Those leaders built the foundation for modern society and for the way that many people think and act today.

In his 2009 TEDx Puget Sound Talk, author and motivation speaker Simon Sinek discusses how these great world leaders have not only shaped today’s society but shaped those who were around them at the time of their leadership and have since been an inspiration long after their passing.

Using leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Wright brothers as examples, Sinek delves into not only what it means to be a leader, but also what it means to be an inspiration.

He explains that pure inspiration comes from strongly believing in something, and sharing that belief with others.

Lift your head high in 2018 and don’t be afraid to share what you feel because, according to Sinek, you just might be inciting inspiration in someone else to do the same.