Whether you want to eat healthier, start exercising, or learn something new, there are tons of resources out there to help you. Because of the amount of information available, it can be overwhelming just to get started. We've put together a list of some of our favorite self-improvement apps to give you some ideas and help you achieve your goals.
MyFitnessPal made it simple for us to start tracking calories. Enter your age, height, weight, and nutritional goals to get personalized guidelines for how many calories, carbs, proteins, fats, sugars, and vitamins you should be eating per day in order to meet your goals. Get in-depth nutritional information on many different homemade, restaurant, and store-bought foods, and save meals that you eat regularly to make it simple to enter them into your food diary later. MyFitnessPal also makes it easy to track your workouts, with the ability to estimate how many calories you burned during your activity. MyFitnessPal also integrates with some fitness trackers in order to get a more accurate picture of how many calories you're burning.
Get moving with RunKeeper! We love the ability to head out on a run, bike ride, or hike and view our mile split times and a mapped out area of our activity. Stay motivated by completing challenges and comparing your workouts to other users. RunKeeper allows you to set personal goals, and will send you reminders to help you meet them. Share your progress with friends or your trainer and listen to your favorite music while you exercise with RunKeeper's Spotify integration.
Mediation is an exercise for your mind that helps you focus by teaching you to recognize and let go of distractions. Headspace makes meditation easy by providing guided meditation lessons from Headspace creator Andy. The first 10 sessions are free and will give you an idea of how practicing mindfulness can help you increase your focus and ignore distractions. After you complete the introductory sessions you can choose from a wide variety of meditation topics including Stress, Sleep, Relationships, Happiness, and Focus, just to name a few. Headspace also offers meditation singles, which are one off guided meditations you can do based on your current situation. Try an SOS Single when you're feeling overwhelmed or a Running or Cycling Single while you're exercising.
Get your finances in order with Mint. Pull in up to date information about your loans, checking and savings accounts, and credit cards to one place. We find it very helpful to see a quick overview of all our account activity, including budgets, cash flow, upcoming bills, and our credit score. Being able to view a comprehensive breakdown of spending trends, top spending categories, and net income over time makes it easier to create a budget and stay on top of your finances.
Though Mint allows us to keep track of our personal finances, we like Personal Capital for analyzing and monitoring investments. The Dashboard is a great way to see a clear breakdown of our net worth, cash flow, investment balances, and allocations. Connect your investment portfolio and get suggestions for improvements you can make to help you reach your financial goals. Personal Capital also shows interesting stats, such as your top "Gainers and Losers" and how your portfolio is performing compared to benchmarks like the S&P 500.
Learning a language may seem like a daunting task, but Duolingo turns language learning into a game by tracking your progress and encouraging friendly competition to strengthen your skills. Earn lingots as you play and spend them in the Lingot Store to buy outfits for Duo (Duolingo's owl mascot) and learn bonus skills like 'Idioms and Proverbs'. The best part about learning with Duolingo is hearing the trumpet play and watching a skill turn gold because you've mastered it. See your Fluency percentage right on your Home screen, and be proud of what you're accomplishing!
Which self-improvement apps do you use? Let us know in the comments below, or talk to us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn!