Top 10 Best Motivational Apps - Free & Paid

There are tons of motivation apps, all promising to help you achieve success. Where do they differ and which is best for you?

No matter how big or small your goals may be, the key to accomplishing them is by staying motivated. But with busy work schedules, making time to see friends, and everything in between, staying motivated is not always easy. Thankfully there’s an app for that. So whether you want to finally put an end to biting your nails, or want to start saving money, motivational apps can be your saving grace.

Where It All Begins

The first step in achieving something or killing a habit is acknowledging it and writing it down.

According to a study done at Dominican University in California, you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. You can choose to write your goals on a piece of paper, but there are apps that make the process of jotting down your goals easier and quicker.

One app that makes goal-setting super simple, is Any.Do. It’s a to-do list that’s packed with advanced and useful features that you are sure to love. You can share a to-do or goal with a friend or family member, add an entry using your voice, or customize entries by time and location. The app will remind you about your tasks, ensuring you get them done in time. GoalsOnTrack is another popular app that is used to help you stick to your goals. You can use the web-based platform, or the available iPhone or Android apps. The app uses a goal-setting system called SMART, that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely, and helps you write your goals and break them up into smaller, more manageable goals.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use app that does a simple thing extremely well, it’s HabitBull.

This app is available for both iPhone and Android, and aims to help you “smash through your goals.” You can use the app to create neat calendars for each habit you want to get rid of, or a goal you want to reach, and track your progress until you accomplish it. So if you want to read for 30 minutes everyday, the app will remind you daily so you actually do it. The app is super simple to set up, is fully customizable, and lets you track up to 100 habits. Use the daily, weekly, or monthly view, and when you’ve completed a task, just mark it off.

Stay In the Game

If you’re like most people, you’ve likely experienced the sudden excitement of setting a goal, followed by the lack of drive to follow through with it. It’s important to stay excited about the goal, and the best way to do that is with external support. Coach.Me offers a free habit tracker that you can use to form a new habit and receive support from the app’s community. The app also offers habit coaching for $15 a month. This feature pairs you with a coach who you can message or speak to via a phone consultation. If you want even more, you can try the offered leadership coaching for $249 a month. The coaching can help you talk through or solve workplace dilemmas and achieve career success. It may seem like a steep price, but it’s comparable to seeing a life coach or consultant in person. Other apps that can help you stick to your goals are Habitica and Wonderful Day. Habitica uses gamification techniques to turn your goals into fun games and challenges. You can use the app yourself or connect with friends, which can help keep you accountable. The more tasks you complete and goals you tick off, the more badges and rewards you can earn. Wonderful Day keeps users motivated by allowing them to challenge themselves to see how many days they can go either doing or not doing the good or bad habit they set for themselves.

If you are attached to your phone or are looking for an app that can help you stay distraction-free while you study, drive, or are at dinner, check out Forest. The app is available for iPhone and Android and can help you overcome your smartphone addiction in a fun and beneficial way. The goal of the app is to get you to stay on it while not touching your phone or leaving the app. When you open the app, a seed gets planted in a forest. The tree gradually grows, as long as the app stays open. If you leave the app to check your phone, your tree will slowly die. Users earn virtual coins for their forests and with that money can buy real life trees. Forest partners with a real tree-planting organization, Trees for the Future, to plant real trees and is contributing to forests around the world.

Track Yourself

While reaching your goals, it’s important to see how you’re doing to ensure you’re on the right path. Use Way Of Life or Habit List, which can help you track your habits visually. The apps aggregate your data and trends to put it into beautiful charts, bar graphs, and pie charts. Habit List also has beautiful chart features to let you step back and see the big picture. Chart colors range from green to red and give you a visual indicator of how well or poorly you’re doing, and the more information you collect, the more information you have to build your charts. Strides is another one that can help you track everything. See your progress by day, week, month, or year. The best part is that all your data gets synced so you can access it anywhere you go and on any device.

Get It Done

Whether you have a goal you’ve been dreaming to accomplish, or you’re in the middle of your goal crushing process, using a motivation app can help you succeed. Different apps cater to different parts of the goal-reaching process, and advanced features make every step simple. So help yourself out by choosing the right app for your needs.