I already admitted in an earlier post that I like heavy metal, so I probably can’t make the situation any worse by doing another post about the metal songs that inspire me to fearless action.  I’m joking, I’m not ashamed of my love of metal—or, to use the militaristic language common to these kinds of songs, my metal allegiance.  If there’s a form of music tailor-made for personal development gurus and devotees, metal is it—except, perhaps, for the ‘80s movie soundtrack rock featured in my last music-related post.

If you listen to one or more of the following songs in the morning, I can practically guarantee you’ll go through the day feeling like conquering the world.  No, not necessarily through violence.  All of the song title links, by the way, are to videos for the songs.

1.  Visions of Fate (Primal Fear). This song’s words are practically straight out of a personal development blog.  The lyrics are actually a list of 50 ways you can get happy today.  Okay, I’m kidding, but they do say “take your life right in your hands, and be the master of your destiny,” which sounds kind of like the back cover of a Wayne Dyer or Tony Robbins book to me.

2.  Kingdom Come (Manowar). This song invites us to “feel the white light, the light within,” but it’s not talking about some delicate, soft white light you might see in communing with your guardian angels.  It’s more like the searing white heat of your warrior spirit.  To avoid overwhelming you with either Manowar or the word “fighting” in this post, I didn’t include Manowar’s “Fighting the World” as one of the main tracks, but it certainly deserves an honorable mention.

3.  Stand Up and Shout (Dio). Ronnie Dio is personally a model of persistence and commitment—he’s been rockin’ for more than four decades, he’s now in his mid-sixties, and he shows no sign of slowing down.  This song reflects Ronnie’s commitment to individualism, dreaming big, and shouting.

4.  Escape (Metallica). I like Metallica, but I wouldn’t call many of their songs particularly motivational.  But this early tune is a rare exception, at least in the sense that it has a happy-sounding chorus and the lyrics are all about living your own way and breaking with convention.

5.  Headin’ Out to the Highway (Judas Priest). This song expresses the time-worn self-help maxim that we should “fail faster to succeed faster.”  It’s about worthwhile risk-taking—in this case, when you’re deciding where to drive, but the message can certainly apply to your search engine optimization, raw juice dieting, kettlebell swinging or wherever you need to push your edge.

6.  The Fire Burns Forever (Hammerfall). This song is certainly inspiring, but what I mostly want to call your attention to is the video, which features Hammerfall hilariously clowning around with Olympic athletes from their native Sweden.

7.  Let Me Feel Your Power (Saxon). In living your life, “loud and fast,” as this song wisely reminds us, is “the only way to go.”  I listen to this one whenever I find myself having doubts about whether I’m “taking up too much space” or “drawing too much attention to myself” as a speaker, and my worries quickly melt away.  Or maybe a better way to put it would be that they are slain by a battle axe or scorched to ashes in the fires of hell.

8.    Best I Can (Queensryche). The stirring tale of a partially paralyzed man who, against all odds, becomes—okay, this is where my understanding of the lyrics gets murky—a basketball player or magazine journalist or something else.  Or all of the above.  Anyway, it’s uplifting.

9.  Fight By My Side (Dream Evil). On the surface, this song may seem to be about war and going down fighting, but again, if you treat the combat references as metaphors for overcoming fears and obstacles, it becomes totally relevant to your personal growth journey.

10.  Fight Forever (Majesty). Yes, another song with a reference to fighting in the title.  It comes with the territory.  The title is self-explanatory—the song is about fighting forever despite overwhelming odds.  And that’s one wonderful thing about metal—you don’t have to do a lot of sophisticated literary analysis to understand the lyrics.

I’ve been joking around to entertain myself and hopefully you, but I really do find these songs empowering to listen to and I hope you do too.

Related posts:

1. 10 Mega-Inspirational Songs (With Tons of Bonus Tracks)
2. Growing Into Our Humanity
3. Puffins Are Adorable (And Why This Matters)
4. Self-Love Isn’t Narcissism
5. Book Review: The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, by Debbie Ford