Life is a constant flow of actions, experiences, and occurrences, each of which affects us in some way or another. Who we are is the result of the things we go through and how they affect us, but that doesn't mean we have to be who our experiences make us!

As human beings, we have the mental capacity and the ability to work on ourselves, implementing changes that make us better people than we were before. That doesn't mean that change is easy—on the contrary, making lasting changes to our personalities can be one of the hardest things to do in life.

That's why it's a good idea to find someone or something that can help us along on our journey of self-improvement and personal development. Having some help, whether it's guidance, motivation, or accountability, gives us an extra boost toward the outcomes we are aiming for.

Hold yourself accountable

Our powerful habit tracking platform, Conjure, is a great way to keep yourself accountable and strive for lasting change.

In this article, we'd like to introduce you to some of the best personal development apps on the market today, so you can find the right one (or more) to help you on your way to mental and physical health.

What is personal growth?

Grow Plant Growth GIF By Tarninabarn via Giphy

Also known as self-growth or self-improvement, it is the journey of transforming yourself into the person you want to be.

This may be easier said than done, especially because who we want to be is something that can change quite drastically over time, and we are always learning and changing.

The journey encompasses many aspects of self-improvement, including creating better habits and behaviors, and learning to control your reactions to stimuli, such as anger or feelings of rejection.

Controlling your reactions can be a tough one. An example would be not responding in anger when someone does something you don't like, but rather considering the situation from a place of calm and giving yourself time to formulate a logical response, rather than lashing out.

Personal development also entails overcoming procrastination and laziness, embracing responsibility, learning and developing new skills, and cultivating a positive mindset. Examples would be learning a language, meditating regularly, or embarking on a fitness journey.

To be successful in your journey toward a better you, you will need motivation, a burning desire for self-improvement, and the courage to step outside of your comfort zone.

You will also need to recognize that who you are has been shaped by the people you were influenced by as a child, such as your family, friends, and teachers, and that many of these things will need to be deliberately changed or undone to make you who you want to be.

Why is personal development so hard, and what can we do about it?

Change is hard because it needs to be done deliberately and actively. This is why so many people go through their entire lives without making any real changes to themselves or their lives. But you can't sit around, living your life the same way every day, and think that you or your life will improve.

As with most things in life, going with the flow is the path of least resistance, and the easiest and most common choice. To leverage real change in our lives, we have to move out of our comfort zones and be willing to actively do the things that will bring change.

To get started, there are a few things you can do that are likely to improve your chances of success. For example, you can tell your closest friends and family about your plans. This keeps you accountable and lets them know that you are in need of support.

Speech To Change Your Life Today! Admiral McRaven "Make Your Bed" – Nate Wylie Studios

You can also set yourself specific, measurable, and attainable goals. Not only those that are the eventual outcomes you want but also the goals that will help you get there. And, of course, you can make use of technology to help you on your way.

The best apps for personal development and well-being

So, you've got the motivation, you've done some reading, and you're ready to get started with changing your life, but you're wondering how you're going to keep track of all these changes you want to implement.

The answer is apps. There are many personal development apps that could help you on your journey, so we've put together a list of suggested apps that each have their own unique ways to help you succeed.

Most of them have free versions as well as monthly or annual plans, and for the best results, some of these apps can be used together to create a holistic well-being experience. Have a read and see which ones will work best for you.

1. Conjure

Conjure is a behavior change and habit-tracking platform that makes the most of habit-building methodology to help you keep track of the goals and objectives you've set for yourself, as well as the steps that will help you reach them.

It is an extremely powerful personal development app that can help you in all aspects of your life, especially when paired with one of the other apps on this list.

For example, if you're starting your weight loss journey or trying to eat healthier, you could use MyFitnessPal to track your calories, macros, exercise, and weight while using Conjure to remind you when to drink water or exercise.

Or, you could combine Conjure with Duolingo by setting long- and short-term goals to do with learning a new language. In this example, Duolingo would be your teacher, actively helping you learn the language, and Conjure would be your coach, keeping track of your progress and helping you keep an eye on the end goal.

On its own, Conjure can be used to track habits, goals, and objectives, and to help you improve your time management skills and keep track of the time you spend on various tasks.

Conjure is available on iOS, Android, and desktop. It is free to use with limited access, or available at 2 different premium rates.

2. Fabulous

This is a great app for creating a new routine that suits your needs. It is a self-improvement app that focuses on coaching and self-care, using behavioral science to help you get the best out of life. The aim of this app is to teach you how to turn tiny daily actions into meaningful and lasting change.

After all, when you set yourself a big goal, it is seldom one big step that will achieve it. Most goals and objectives are made up of many small steps.

Fabulous is maintained and continuously improved by a team of experts, including psychologists, behavioral economists, and data scientists. It has a clean and simple interface with a pleasing design, excellent for keeping track of your habits and goals.

The app is available on iOS and Android and offers limited use for free. The subscription is priced at $39.99 per year after a paid 14-day trial, but there are some alternative payment solutions to choose from if you put in a little effort. A monthly subscription comes with a free 7-day trial and costs $4.16 per month, and a lifetime subscription will set you back $250.

3. Calm

Calm is essentially a meditation app, though it has some extra features and uses. The organization's mission is to bring health and happiness to as many people as they can, which is always nice to know as a consumer.

The app, which is available on desktop, iOS, and Android, offers meditation, music, stretching videos, masterclasses by experts in the mindfulness field, and scenes and sounds from nature to help you relax and focus. It can also help you get a good night's sleep and significantly reduce stress.

Basic use of the app is free, but limited, and a 7-day free trial is offered before you purchase a subscription. Premium use will cost you $14.99 a month, $69.99 a year, or R399.99 for lifetime access. You can't put a price on your mental well-being.

4. MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a fitness app that helps you learn to eat mindfully in order to improve your health, gain or lose weight, or simply get fitter and stronger. Few tools are as robust and powerful as this one for creating a healthier diet and boosting physical well-being.

It can tell you just about everything you need to know about your physical well-being, from how much weight you need to lose or gain to how much sodium you should be consuming each day. Eating healthier may not be easy, but using this app can help significantly.

MyFitnessPal makes it easy to stay motivated and offers a simple way to track your calories and macros, exercise, water intake, and more with its user-friendly appearance. It also offers access to daily insights about your progress and plenty of recipes and inspirational stories to help you get and stay on track.

The app integrates with plenty of fitness apps and devices, allowing you to track your steps from your fitness watch or record your food diary in more than one place. Integration is quick and simple, requiring no special skills or hard work.

You can use the app for free on iOS, Android, and desktop with some minor limitations, or pay $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year for a premium subscription service. The premium option does open up a few useful features for more experienced users, such as measuring macros by the gram or setting custom macro and calorie goals for different days.

5. Duolingo

Yes, learning a new language is most definitely an aspect of self-improvement! Not only does it exercise your brain and push your comfort zones, but it also gives you a new and useful tool that could open up new opportunities for you.

There are more job opportunities for bilingual people, and knowing more than one language can vastly increase your travel options.

Learning a new language with Duolingo is simple and fun, and the app is completely free! This powerful app has a game-like feel to it that makes learning a bit more fun. You can learn to read, write, and speak your chosen language, and it is possible to learn more than one language at a time.

Learning is personalized, thanks to language science and AI learning, and you can choose exactly how much time you'd like to spend on it each day.

The app is available to teachers, companies, and individuals for free, but if you'd like to support the developers, there is a Super version that gives you unlimited "lives" or tries and has no ads, among other advantages. It is priced at just $7 a month or $84 a year.

6. Opal

Are you one of those people who spends way too much time on your phone? Then this app is for you. Opal is a simple app that will help you limit your screen time and learn to focus better on your important tasks.

During customized Sessions, the app will disable the problem apps on your phone so that you can't use them, though you can tell the app to take a break, which will reactivate them again temporarily.

Opal will provide you with insights about your phone use, allowing you to check your focus throughout the day and sending you weekly reports about which apps are damaging your focus and which are improving it.

The creators' vision is to help one billion people improve their focus and reach their dreams, and they have made that possible by offering free limited use of the app. If you want to support the developers, however, you can subscribe for $8.25 a month, $99.99 a year, or $299 for a lifetime pass.

Should you be looking for a bit more one-on-one, Opal offers 4 weeks of personal coaching for $399, which includes lifetime access to the app and all its features.

7. Anki

Do you occasionally walk into a room and forget why you went there? Me, too! It can be a little scary when we realize how bad our memories get with age. But fear not; Anki has you covered. You can find alternative apps here too.

The sole purpose of this personal development app is to help you remember things, and it uses flashcards to do that. Sounds simple, but the app is based on some serious science. It uses active recall testing and spaced repetition to help you learn and remember... don't worry. We didn't know what they were either.

Active recall testing

When someone asks you a question and you try to remember the answer, you're using active recall testing. This is what tests and exams do when we're in school or college. Trying to remember in this way helps to improve our memories, but it also ensures that we'll be more likely to remember the answer in future. Every time you recall something, it becomes more set in your mind.

Spaced repetition

This effect is used in conjunction with the one above, and refers to the amount of time between recalls. If you learn something new, you should review it again in the next day or two, then a few days after that, then a week, a month, a few months, a year.

This way, you cement the knowledge in your brain by recalling the fact over and over again, but spaced out, rather than trying to cram the knowledge in all at once. Students, we're looking at you.

Anki is open source, available on iOS, Android, and desktop, and free on almost every platform. Apple users, you'll have to pay $24.99 if you want the app, but you can still use AnkiWeb on your phone's browser. We do recommend paying if you can, though, as this is the only remuneration the sole developer gets. He did not develop the Android app, and those who did decided to keep it free on that platform.

8. Waking Up

Waking Up is, at its core, a meditation app, but it's really much more than that, too. It doesn't just teach you to meditate, but why you should. It doesn't just teach you mindfulness, but what it is. With this app, you will have access to a multitude of lessons on various topics, and you'll be able to listen to recorded conversations on all sorts of interesting subjects.

The app will send you mindfulness reminders every day in the form of an audio message, which will help you remember to meditate and be mindful. This, in turn, will help you reduce stress and stay on top in this hectic world.

If you're wondering what sets these guys apart, it's their generosity. You will have to pay for the app, but you can rest easy knowing that 10% of all the organization's profits go to charities. The app will cost you $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year, but if you really can't afford that, they offer a partial "scholarship" to make sure everyone has a chance.

If even the 50% off is out of your reach, you can contact them through their scholarship link to ask for a full scholarship.

9. one sec

This useful app falls into the delay distracting category. It is one of the simplest and most effective self-improvement apps—all it does is ask you to take a deep breath in and out before your social media app will open.

The concept behind one sec is based on some really logical science. When we get messages or notifications on our phones, we get all happy and excited, releasing dopamine in our brains. We have to open the message right then and there for the instant gratification it brings us.

If we are halted, however, our brains quickly lose interest, and we revert to our normal state. Doing this regularly helps us to overcome the need for instant gratification and lose the urge to open our social media so many times a day. The effectiveness of this app has been confirmed in this study.

There is a free version of this solution if you only have one problem app, but if you're a social media junky, you may have to get the paid subscription. It is a cross-platform app, and available for just $3.99 per month. You can also pay $9.99 annually for a single user or $14.99 for a family subscription. Lifetime access will cost you $39.99. With prices like these, who's quibbling?

10. Insight Timer

Insight Timer is said to be a compilation of 5 well-being apps in one. It offers you the largest library of free guided meditations in the world from experts in numerous fields, including mindfulness teachers, psychologists, and spiritual leaders.

It has a meditation timer for those who like to guide their own meditations, and it has a vast selection of music for all tastes to help you meditate, do yoga, or just relax. There are bedtime stories, breathing classes, different types of yoga, and a journalling and mood-tracking area.

This free app is an excellent choice for anyone wanting to learn more about themselves and use meditation and mindfulness as a big part of their self-improvement journey. It boosts mental and physical health while teaching you all about why its practices work.

If you like the generosity of the app developers, you can support them by buying their Member Plus subscription for $60 a year after a 7-day free trial. It will give you access to some new courses, enable offline listening, and provide you with higher-quality audio and a more advanced audio player.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 4 areas of personal growth?

There are technically 5 areas, but since we're not talking about growing your bones in this article, but rather, personality development we'll just talk about the other 4.

Mental growth

This refers to the way your mind develops, including your ability to learn and the way you think, and to how your behavior is affected by your brain functions, including your senses, thoughts, feelings, and intuition.

This is all about how you communicate. It is very important for forming solid friendships and relationships, as well as in business. This doesn't only mean how you talk but also how you listen and respond.

Spiritual growth

This is the way you connect with your inner self. It is the drive toward feeling at peace within yourself and feeling happy with your personal development. For many people, this comes from their religion or belief system, while for others, it comes purely from within.

Emotional growth

This refers to how you manage your emotions and how they change and develop over time. Growing emotionally will help you learn to talk about your feelings in a constructive way, and can help you deal with all sorts of difficult circumstances, like stressful or emotional situations, anxiety and stress, and even nervous breakdown.

What are some ideas for personal development goals?

If you're wanting to start making a change but you're not exactly sure where you should begin, we have a few ideas for you. These are great for the beginner personal grower and are things that most people on a personal development journey will try to tackle at some point.

Learn to overcome procrastination
Limit your time on social media
Limit screen time, especially in the evenings before bed
Improve your eating habits for health or weight loss
Get more exercise
Create a healthier schedule
Improve your sleep habits

Be who you want to be

Conjure can help you keep track of all your goals and objectives, no matter how simple or complex your plans are.

Which app can best help me with my goals?

There are so many free and paid apps out there that it's pretty much impossible to pick just one, but we believe that Conjure is an excellent option for an all-round personal development app, especially when paired with another app from this list for a holistic experience.

No matter what your goals are, you can use Conjure to track and measure them, and its many useful integrations will ensure that you have the best possible chance at success.

Conclusion

There are many useful apps on the market, each with their own unique advantages, and all you need to do to move forward on your personal development journey is pick one that suits you and get started.

Conjure is a great choice for just about any personal change, and it integrates nicely with many fitness apps and self-development platforms to give you the best all-round experience and chance of success.

About Conjure

Conjure is a next-generation time and habit-tracking tool designed to help you intentionally manage your time, develop positive habits, and achieve your goals.

Seamlessly organize your habits, track your time, see your progress, and stay on top of your goals with Conjure.

Join Conjure today and take back control of your routine!