If you’ve strategized, planned, and performed to your best, and are now looking for a guided path to reach your full potential, maybe it’s time to get yourself a life coach.

A life coach is a trained professional who can help you achieve all-around development and attain your full potential across several aspects of life.

Like an athlete has a coach to work on specialized parts of their fitness and gameplay, ordinary people can also adopt an organized strategy for self-awareness and improvement. A certified life coach can help them through this part.

So, what exactly does a life coach do?

A life coach works with people to help them make upgrades in their lives and move ahead from whatever is making them feel stuck. Your coach will help you set goals depending on your priorities in life, and then devise a plan so you can achieve them within a set deadline.

They don’t teach anything new. Rather, coaches work on the belief that every person has everything inside themselves to make whatever life upgrades they desire. The coach works more as a facilitator than as a teacher.

This is life coaching summarized on a broader scale. At a micro level, life coaches have their area of specialization. Some work in relationships, some in career, some in family and private matters, some in goal-accomplishing, fitness, habit building, and the list continues.

This post is the ultimate guide to getting started with working together with a life coach. If you’ve ever considered upgrading your life with the help of a trained professional, this article can be your cue to start doing that right away. Read on for some insights, and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments.

Who needs a life coach

Technically, any person can hire a life coach, no matter what phase of life they are at. Coaching can be an incredibly eye-opening experience and can make several hurdles seem less daunting.

However, certain situations can become much easier with a life coach’s expert guidance, for example, switching jobs or shifting careers, and undergoing a significant life change like moving to a new city or entering a new relationship. 

Aside from that, there are several signs that working with a life coach can make your life significantly better. These are:

• If you find life meaningless or fail to see a purpose.
• If you feel constantly dissatisfied, no matter how many accomplishments you have under your belt.
• If the people around you feel like you’re pushing them away. 
• If you’re always under a lot of stress.
• If you’re trying to build new habits or break old ones.

No matter what your situation is, coaching helps you become self-aware and gives you enough clarity to view life from a different perspective. That’s why it’s important to be very careful and pick the right life coach whose coaching style and budget match your requirements.

Most coaches offer a free clarity call to help you understand if they are the right fit for you. Make sure you check out our actionable tips to make the most of your first call with your prospective life coach.

How can a life coach help me

As mentioned before, working with a life coach has several benefits. Coaching can be depicted as reevaluating. It’s tied in with figuring out how to reframe your perspective and directs your capacity to deal with the hardships involved in what Werner Erhard called “the being of a human being.”

A life coach helps people to push forward in areas where they feel stuck — be it individual goals, relationships with others, how they wish to make a living, what they want to accomplish in life.

1. Helps you gain clarity around your life’s purpose.
2. Equips you to seek solutions to specific problems in life.
3. Makes you more self-aware.
4. Helps you make a plan and stick to it.
5. 5. Helps boost your productivity.
6. Holds you accountable.
7. Inspires you to constantly re-evaluate your thinking and beliefs.
8. Helps you nurture better relationships with yourself and the people around you.
9. Helps you be more grateful and have a positive outlook on the effect others have on your life.
10. Makes you more likely to accept constructive criticism.
11. Makes you more empathic and compassionate, so you can see and feel the world through the perspective of another person. 
12. Helps you make better decisions. 
13. Keeps you motivated and disciplined.
14. Eliminates bad habits.

Aside from these, working with a life coach can have multiple other benefits like helping you manage your time more productively, making you more goal-oriented, eliminating negative thoughts, and overcoming your irrational fear and unnecessary anxiety. Statistics from the International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) Client Survey tracked down that 67.6% of coaching customers experience a more elevated level of mindfulness.

Is a life coach the same as a therapist or a mentor

No matter how similar their services might sound at first glance, a life coach is different from a mentor. 

Perhaps, the most critical difference between a mentor and a life coach can be summed up in the words of Coach Tony, the Founder of Coach.me: “Mentors are found by chance, and coaches are available right now. So, looking for a mentor means postponing your career growth, often for quite a long time. But, choosing to opt for a coach means embracing the next step to your growth right away.”

A life coach is also different from a therapist. 

Whereas a therapist looks into a person’s past and helps them tackle unresolved issues there, a coach looks on to the future and helps a person design better goals, stick to them, and in general improve the quality of their life by working on what they promised themselves. 

What are the long-term impacts of having a life coach

Life coaching is often a time-exhaustive project and may require several months before you start seeing the results. However, if you keep working hard with your coach over an extended period of time, the impact of life coaching can be all-encompassing. Some of the many ways a good life coach can impact you are:

1. Helps you achieve your goals

With a life coach’s help, you can design an exclusive arsenal of explicit tools and techniques for achieving all the objectives you set for yourself. Thus, you don’t have to experiment or waste time in trial and error. You’ll get the perfect strategy that’s tailor-made to your goals, strengths, and weaknesses, and can help you make your dreams come true with the least resistance.

Periodically reviewing your objectives or sharing any obstacles you encounter on the way to a coach can be supremely helpful. You can avoid unnecessary mistakes if you keep talking about your plans from time to time with your coach.

2. Offers a perspective shift

You get an unbiased, third-person’s point of view on any hurdles that might be stopping you from reaching your goals. This can be a significant impact because most people tend to get stuck in a specific worldview, often banging their head against a closed door while turning a blind eye to a new window filled with opportunities open right in front of them. 

3. You’ll have a role model

A life coach can be a good example to emulate. They can be a positive influence on your life. Your conversations will spark your curiosity and give you a burst of motivation to make your journey easier.

4. You’ll run out of excuses

Of all the problems that hold us back from the life we truly want to live, most are in our heads. When a task seems difficult, we make excuses and refuse to find workarounds that might make the job easier.

In such a case, having a life coach can serve as the ultimate accountability boost. Since your coach holds you responsible for meeting your goals on time, you’ll no longer have any valid excuse that the task is “too hard” or that the process takes “too long.”

5. You feel encouraged

An important part of achieving your goals on time and enjoying the process is celebrating small wins. A life coach will help you do that and make you feel appreciated. 

You will also have a better understanding of your own strengths. Your coach will assist you with identifying and fine-tuning them so you can get out of the loop of negative self-talk and learn to look at what lies ahead instead of focussing on the opportunities you might have missed.

What to keep in mind before considering life coaching

However, as incredibly effective it might be, life coaching is definitely not a magic pill. Employing a life coach won’t bring forth a sense of “instantaneous achievement”. Here are some potential pitfalls of life coaching, and the prime reasons why so many people have a negative impression about having their own life coach.

1. Life coaching doesn’t give immediate results

A common misconception among people is that a life coach will provide you actionable steps which will help you achieve your goals immediately. Sadly, that’s not the case.

A life coach will help you understand your goals, your strengths, and your weaknesses, and then design a strategy that works best for you accordingly. Ultimately, the onus for doing the work is on you, as is the responsibility of updating your coach about small wins and hurdles you face along the way.

2. Life coaching can’t treat mental health issues

As mentioned earlier, a life coach is different from a therapist. If you have a mental health condition like ADHD, depression, or anxiety, only a qualified professional can help you.

However, it is possible to get results if you are seeing a therapist and a coach at the same time, as long as you keep separate expectations from both. 

3. Life coaching will only work if the coach is suited to your needs

A relationship coach might not be able to help you get a salary hike. Similarly, a fitness coach might not be able to help you with your alcohol addiction.

Since coaching is such a specialized field of study, you can only get results when you hire someone who is specifically suited to solve the problem you are seeking to resolve. In addition, the coach’s coaching style has to align with yours, and your way of tackling situations has to be matched. That’s why a clarity call is so important so you can make sure of all these before making a commitment and then regretting it if things don’t work out as you had planned.

How to work with a life coach

If you feel like you’re ready to work with a life coach and welcome transformation into your life, here are the steps you can follow to make sure you have a good experience the first time around:

1. Find a coach

A good place to look for prospective coaches is by browsing through a coaching directory. Get yourself a life coach now from the Coach.Me directory of some of the most high-rated life coaches in the world.

2. Hop on a clarity call

As mentioned before, most coaches offer a free consultation call so that you can have a conversation with them. To determine if a coach is best suited to what you are looking for, you have to know the tips to make the most of your first coaching call. Check this article for a few tips to help you choose the right coach.

3. Your first coaching session

Life coaching is like a partnership where two people — the client and the coach — work together to achieve a common goal. During your first life coaching session, your coach won’t impose their wishes on you or force you to make any decision whatsoever. 

They will simply let you talk and help decipher your goals and what habits or limiting beliefs are stopping you from reaching them. Since coaching sessions are confidential, you can feel free to express your innermost thoughts, feelings, and opinions without the fear of judgment.

4. After the first session

In all probability, you will leave the first session with lots of ideas buzzing around in your brain. It’s best to journal your feelings so you can compare them with later sessions as you progress. Your coach will also likely give you a set of tasks you’ll complete before the next session.

5. Subsequent sessions 

There are no standard guidelines about how long a life coaching session should be. It can last from a few minutes and go up to a few hours. Likewise, the frequency of the calls also varies from coach to coach, and you can work on a cadence that suits your goals and the urgency of your current motive behind getting a coach for yourself. 

Find more resources about life coaching here

1. Why Would a Person Pay for a Life Coach?
2. What Do People Expect From a Life Coach?
3. 8 Myths About Life Coaching
4. How Long Should You Work With A Life Coach?

Habits are small decisions taken into regular action. How it shapes you is a result of the habits you had decided to develop in the past. But do you know how you develop that particular habit? Are you aware of how you were able to build those habits? 

In research by Duke University published online on January 16, 2016, scientists suggest that habits manifest in the brain and suggest new strategies for breaking them. Practices leave a lasting mark on specific circuits of the brain. So whatever you build up in the brain would become the actions that you perform every day.  

Therefore, you may ask, how to consciously build up those actions so that the brain could develop them into a habit? Some of these actions are just simple and easily applicable, and here are three of them:

How to Build Better Habits

Researchers say that people who are successful in controlling their behavior form good habits, but there are more to it than just self-control:

1. Understand how a habit is formed

Since all habits start with the function of the brain, better understand how it works through forming the pattern that becomes a habit.

It all comes from neuroscience; it appreciates how the brain works with other body parts, primarily the nervous system. The brain forms neural pathways that send signals from one part of the brain to the other. The more you perform a task or the longer you think about how a job is done, the stronger the neural pathways will become. And it retains the information that will eventually form into a habit.

Thus the general rule of the brain in forming a habit is: make a repetitive action in a span that the brain can clearly remember it. According to the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 18 – 254 days to form an automatic behavior about something they repeatedly do. 

A single missed opportunity to perform that action or process does not materially affect the habit formation process. So, do it in a span that your brain can develop and process into a habit. 

2. Write down your goal.

When aiming to develop a habit, always be clear about your goal. It guides you to attain the result of something that you envision and commit to achieving. A clear goal helps you motivate yourself to be consistent and focused.

Write your goal. Writing your goal will allow your brain to encode it and store it in long-term memory and external storage. According to neuropsychologists, this process is called the “generation effect” ” wherein people better recall information when they create it themselves rather than just reading it. 

3. Start Small

Being ambitious and aggressive in building better habits is not bad at all. However, you must have a realistic perspective and discern if your aim is too big to become unattainable. Thus, it is always best to start small and end big. 

According to Josef B from the book Tiny Habits, The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg, – “Tiny Habits is the only method for change that worked for me.” Also, Rob G says, “Tiny Habits is a roadmap to a better you.”

A simple example of making tiny habits is taking a daily short walk that would eventually lead you to an exercise habit—or bringing a home-cooked meal to your office that could lead you to better eating habits. 

These are small steps that won’t overwhelm you, and these small beginnings will eventually bring you to bigger wins that ultimately form better habits in you.

Key Takeaway

Making your way to build a better habit takes lots of effort. And these efforts must not overwhelm you; instead, these efforts should be actionable rather than complicated. Follow the simple tips above, aim for success, earn that good habit and succeed in life.

A habit is repeated behavior that is learned rather than acquired. It requires little or no thought to develop a habit, and it can be part of any activity you do regularly. And that habit becomes your character and, ultimately, your destiny. That’s why Aristotle said that “We are what we repeatedly do.”

You can develop habits in either conscious or unconscious behavior, and the habits you form can either be good or bad. Good habits are those behaviors that are beneficial to your well-being, and it is often linked to discipline and self-control.

Likewise, bad habits are negative behavioral patterns that may be willful or a result of an unconscious act. Thus, it would be best if you recognized them before they became your character. 

Breaking Bad Habits through Habit Coaching 

You can keep bad habits, like fidgeting, but needless to say, most bad habits are detrimental and should be changed, eliminated, and replaced. Ditching a bad habit may be a challenge because the process of breaking it does the same practice when you develop it. 

Also, breaking and replacing a bad habit takes double effort because you have yet to create a good routine after breaking the bad one. Thus it needs double work to ditch the bad and develop the good. That’s why you need a habit coaching program to help you break a bad habit for good. 

Habit coaching enables you to transform and do things differently, not just for fitness and nutrition but for your overall lifestyle. It would create a true and lasting positive transformation that supports your well-being.

Habit coaching allows you to stay connected and motivated by having a habit coach be part of your routine. The coach will set you up and guide you to achieve bigger goals and improve your life through small daily steps and conscious wins.

When to See A Habit Coach 

Your conscious decision to start a habit change is already a win towards making a good life. But when you decide otherwise, you might need to work with a habit coach, especially if you encounter these unpopular perspectives:

1. You are tired of relying on your motivation to get things done.
2. You need to see a coach if you are tired of starting anew because of a recurring failure.
3. When you doubt yourself to accomplish things, you need a habit coach to help you find clarity.
4. It would help if you had a coach when you become unaccountable, unmotivated, and tend to give up easily.
5. If you are likely to get stressed easily – wanting to change a habit could sometimes be a struggle and stressful, thus making you get discouraged and give up so easily. So if you are overwhelmed with this condition, you must get a habit coach to help you change your habit. 

The Benefits of Habit Coaching 

As you break an unwanted habit through habit coaching, you would realize bundles of benefits that would surely change your life for good. And these are some of the benefits that you will enjoy.

1. Habit coaching provides you the proper skills, strategies, and support needed to develop a habit.
2. Helps build your confidence to pursue your goal and make changes with your routines.
3. You will get valuable experience because you work with exceptional habit coaches.
4. It helps you see your blind spots – when you are into habit coaching, you will be guided to discover and uncover your potentials that you might not know you have or you avoided. 
5. It helps you practice mindfulness – you will be aware of your feelings, actions, and thoughts that directly relate to your habit, thus making you conscious to avoid or act on it. 

Diet & Fat Loss

My position is that you should be focused on manipulating your body to burn fat. This is a very different focus than calorie-counting and is based on the scientific explanations of Dr. Jason Fung (and our own experience running diet studies and supporting fat loss coaches).

To manipulate your body to be in fat-burning mode, most people will have two options: reduce carbs or increase fasting time.

Try both at once if you want to burn fat quickly, but also know that for long-term health you should be looking for a permanent change. In our experience as behavior designers, the 16:8 intermittent fasting option — where you skip breakfast everyday — is a much easier permanent lifestyle change than avoiding carbs for the rest of your life.

There are a couple of caveats. We haven’t covered diet changes for people with significant pre-existing health issues. If this is you, trust your doctor, not us. Also, many women have told us anecdotally that they experience low carb and fasting differently than it is described by men. I feel like this is a blind spot in our coverage, and I’m sorry.

Last, a huge amount of diet writing comes with a heavy dose of fat shaming. We’ve tried to avoid that, but if you have arrived here feeling like you’ve been fat-shamed in the past, please read Ragen Chastain’s piece about Leaving Toxic Diet Culture Behind.

Intermittent fasting:

We don’t have an intro to fasting article yet. If we did, it would be focused on eating windows. That form of fasting is commonly called 16:8 and refers to an 8-hour eating window: say, noon to 8pm. You do all of your eating in that window, and then fast for the remaining 16 hours.

• Science: Does Fasting Burn Muscle? ~Dr. Jason Fung
• Case Study: Tracking Ketones and Energy During Intermittent Fasting ~Mark Moschel
• Case Study: I lost 50lbs on a 5:2 Intermittent Fast ~Dave Wentworth

Low Carb:

There are a lot of variants of Low Carb that are mostly on the spectrum of how aggressively you will avoid carbs. Keto is the most aggressive.

Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb uses a weekly cheat day to make the diet change easier to follow.

• A Blueprint for Fat Loss with Slow Carb, Low Carb & Keto Diets ~Dorothy Stainbrook
• How to Eat According to Your Carb Tolerance ~John Fawkes
• How to Check if a Food Label is Keto ~Abigail Roaquin

Comparison of Diet Approaches:

In 2014, we ran a weight loss experiment using control groups and randomized assignment. Our goal was to compare popular diet approaches and what we found was that they all led to weight loss (even as compared to the control group). As part of that experiment we wrote up helpful diet cheat sheets that you can use now as quick guides to different approaches:

Slow Carb | Paleo | Whole Foods | Vegetarian | DASH

Skills:

The importance of these articles is in the behavior change. It’s easy to know how you should eat, but much harder to follow through. Hopefully, these skills will help.

• How to Use Mindfulness Meditation to Overcome Emotional Eating ~Stefy Uotani
• How to Conquer Food Cravings ~Dr. Jason Fung
• How to Meal Prep Like a Champ ~Jen
• If You’re Going to Count Calories, Make Sure You Also Count Macros ~Serdar Tuncali

Case studies:

• Case study: How I Lost 40 Pounds in my 50s by Combining Strategies ~Steve Spring
• Case study: How I Lost 12 Pounds During My Month of Whole 30 ~Steve Spring
• Case study: Lose Weight and Get Fit After 40 ~Larry Cornett, Ph.D.
• Case study: How I Lost 65 Pounds and Reversed Pre-diabetes ~Abigail Roaquin

Fasting vs. caloric restriction:

So many people are unhelpfully locked into caloric restriction as the way they view fat loss, so here are some ways of looking at it. The TL;DR is that yes, you do end up in a caloric deficit with any fat loss, but that’s a side effect that you can ignore and instead focus on hormonal manipulation.

• Obesity is a Hormonal Imbalance, Not a Caloric Imbalance ~Dr. Jason Fung
• What is the Difference Between Fasting & Caloric Restriction ~Dr. Jason Fung
• The Science of Why Caloric Restriction Fails ~Dr. Jason Fung
• Why Fasting Succeeds Where Caloric Restriction Fails ~Dr. Jason Fung

Exercise

Just seven articles — obviously there’s a much bigger world that we haven’t covered yet.

• The Complete Guide to Overcoming Gymtimidation ~Ragen Chastain
• How to Prevent Injuries Even if You Work a Desk Job ~Carol Moynham
• The 1,000 Calorie Protein Shake ~Jesse Warren Tevelow
• How to Stick to Your Fitness Habits ~John Fawkes
• How to Overcome Resistance to Running ~Odille Remmert
• Grease the Groove — The Russian Military Secret to Strength Endurance ~John Fawkes
• How I Squatted 100 Kilograms After Just 37 Hours of Training ~Reinoud Schuijers

Sleep

Sleep is the ultimate brain training and health habit. You get more done when you’re rested and so it’s almost always worth the trade-off of giving yourself a full night of rest.

Of course, getting to sleep and staying asleep isn’t always easy:

• How to Fall Asleep Quickly and Wake Up With Energy ~Melissa Chu
• The Complete Guide to Curing Insomnia ~John Fawkes
• How to Power Through Sleep Deprivation When You Have No Other Choice ~K. Markle

Your morning routine:

• How to Stop Struggling By Building Your Own Morning Routine ~Jason Gutierrez
• How to Wake Up Early ~George Halachev

Tracking:

• Case study: What I Learned From Six Months of Obsessive Sleep Hacking ~Chris Davidson

Give Up Caffeine

The benefits of doing this are often for sleep, but also to save a small amount of money, and, counterintuitively, for productivity.

• A Very Thorough Guide to Quitting Coffee & Caffeine ~John Fawkes
• How to Kick a Caffeine Addiction in 5 days ~John Fawkes
• Case Study: The Effects of Caffeine, Alcohol, and Exercise on Sleep: Analyzing the Surprising Results ~Max Frenzel
• Case Study: What I Learned From Quitting Coffee After 15 Years Of Daily Consumption ~Angelo Belardi

Give Up Alcohol

A lot of people develop unhealthy habits around alcohol that turn into a drag on their health, their sleep, and their productivity. Here are some ways to turn those habits around.

• How One Year Without Beer Unlocked My Performance in Business and Life ~Andy Ramage
• What Happened to Me After Giving Up Alcohol for One Year ~Malcolm Bedell

When you are trying to build a new habit or break out of an old one, getting a habit tracker is an amazing option.

Marking your daily progress in pursuit of the new habit in a habit tracker is a great way to make sure you don’t fall off the wagon. The easiest way to do it is to set your daily goals and mark them on a journal or calendar.

You can also download a free habit tracker and mark the days you managed to meet your daily goal. Seeing an unbroken streak of a lot of days can be a huge motivator and go a long way in making sure you don’t give up on yourself.

But since there are so many highly-rated apps on the play store (check the 5 Most Popular FREE Habit Tracking Apps in the Apple App Store here), how can you determine which one is the best? This post discusses the best habit tracker app on the play store.

Introducing Coach.me 

As their app store description establishes, “Coach.me will completely change your life! Get started with habit tracking. Then add in community support and private coaching for the ultimate support system for your goals.

Every aspect of our app and community is focused on helping you achieve mastery. From day one, we show you your progress, celebrate your milestones, and answer your questions.

Every aspect of our experience has been designed based on the latest research on psychology and behavior design. We are huge fans of Carol Dweck, Daniel Kahneman and BJ Fogg. If you join our community you will develop a growth mindset, learn the power of positive reinforcement, experience the motivational force of external accountability, and harness your improvement efforts in an efficient way according to the tenants of deliberate practice.” Whether you are looking for a discreet companion to enjoy a night on the town, or an intimate evening in the comfort of your own home, you will find it in Zug. With a selection of stunning escort ladies to choose from, you can be sure that you will find the perfect match for your needs. From experienced professionals to young and vibrant vixens, you can find the perfect erotic date for whatever your desires may be. Finding escort girls in Zug can be an exciting and thrilling experience. Start your search today to find the girl of your dreams.

What makes Coach.Me different from all the rest?

• Coach.me is the original app that inspired most others that you currently find on the app store. 
• It is based on the deepest positive psychology that will help you not just mindlessly pursue your goal, but actively take steps to make sure you are living the life you dreamed for yourself. In short, the app will help you lead a better life with better habits.
• It has built-in accountability in the form of the habit tracker and the Directory of Accountability Coaches to help you stay true to your resolutions.
• It has a powerful and responsive community with regular check-ins. You can learn an all-round holistic route to self-improvement, and feel like you are a part of a community of the people who are the most passionate about self-improvement. 

Sure, you can track other aspects of the habit in terms of how much progress you have made. But tracking your consistency is also valuable. No matter where you are in your journey of incorporating the new habit into your daily routine, an occasional pat on the back for sticking to your goals is important.

This is where a habit tracker comes in.

Mark the days where you stuck to your new habit, and soon, you’ll get addicted to seeing the streak going on. There’s something magical about having an unbroken streak. It can make you feel accomplished and motivated to keep working.

One of the best habit tracker apps on the app store is the Coach.Me app. If you are wondering whether or not this app is useful, here are some amazing reviews of the Coach.Me app:

“Wish I would have met my coach Will years ago! I am literally 3 times more effective and productive than I used to be.” ~ Dan

“Before my coach Josh, the idea of bounding out of bed early in the morning was a dream and something I had tried and failed at for years. Josh broke it down into very simple steps. I am now sleeping better, getting up early consistently and the biggest breakthrough is getting up is now easy.” ~Jess

“Without being able to press that ‘Send Message’ button to my coach every day, I am certain I would not have come as far with my writing. With that momentum, I managed to write 500 words nearly every day, started a blog, and am still going. It’s been only 3 months, and I feel like a new person.” ~ Alina

“I got a promotion literally two weeks after hiring my business coach. Now I have a much bigger say over product and strategy. I feel like a leader and people treat me accordingly!” ~ Graham

“Dorothy has been so inspirational to me and gives me the reasoning and a solution to any problem I have had on the diet. With her coaching, I lost 20 pounds and now have the habits in place to lose the next 20 on my own. I might keep her around, however, just for the support and occasional kick in the butt.” ~ Estela

“I get more done before my family wakes up than I used to in an entire day. After countless attempts to do this on my own, hiring George as a coach was the lever I needed to shift my productivity fast forward. I’ve been successful because George helped me create a morning routine that works specifically for me.” ~ Jim

Download it for your iPhone here.

If you are looking for more habit tracker apps to download for your iPhone, you can check out the 5 Most Popular FREE Habit Tracking Apps in the Apple App Store here.5 Most Popular FREE Habit Tracking Apps in the Apple App Store – HabitHacks

If you are trying to build a new habit or get rid of an old one, tracking your progress on the calendar can be a huge motivating factor on your journey. If you mark the days on the calendar where you managed to successfully stick to your new habit, you’ll soon see a streak. The longer you build the streak, the harder it will become for you to break it.

That’s where habit tracker apps come in. They serve as an incredible self-accountability check and can help you boost your motivation to stick to your new habit.

This post contains a list of the five most popular FREE habit tracking apps on the Apple App Store. Do you spot any favorites? Let us know in the comments below.

1. Coach.Me

As the description reads, Coach.me will completely change your life! 

Start with our world-class goal and habit tracking. Our free tracking tools will change your life. If you get stuck in your goals, get motivated by our community or hire one of our world-class coaches.

Every aspect of our app and community is focused on helping you achieve mastery. From day one, we show you your progress, celebrate your milestones, and answer your questions. Honestly, we should be charging you $500 just to be a member, but 90% of our tools are completely free to you.

Every aspect of our experience has been designed based on the latest research on psychology and behavior design. We are huge fans of Carol Dweck, Daniel Kahneman and BJ Fogg. If you join our community you will develop a growth mindset, learn the power of positive reinforcement, experience the motivational force of external accountability, and harness your improvement efforts in an efficient way according to the tenants of deliberate practice.

Some positive reviews

• “Wish I would have met my coach Will years ago! I am literally 3 times more effective and productive than I used to be.” ~ Dan 
• “Before my coach Josh, the idea of bounding out of bed early in the morning was a dream and something I had tried and failed at for years. Josh broke it down into very simple steps. I am now sleeping better, getting up early consistently and the biggest breakthrough is getting up is now easy.” ~Jess
• “Without being able to press that ‘Send Message’ button to my coach every day, I am certain I would not have come as far with my writing. With that momentum, I managed to write 500 words nearly every day, started a blog, and am still going. It’s been only 3 months, and I feel like a new person.” ~ Alina

Install the app here.

2. Productive — Habit Tracker

As the description on the App Store reads, “Productive is a free and easy-to-use tool that helps you build a routine of positive, life changing habits. Set personal goals, track your progress, and motivate yourself to achieve new heights!

What can you do with the Productive app?

– Plan your habits with an easy-to-use interface

– Schedule habits for any time of the day

– Set smart reminders for each time of the day

– Stay on track with useful feedback

Why should you download the Productive app?

SIMPLICITY: The clear and beautiful interface is intuitive and easy to use and will help you stay focused and determined to build new habits and reach new goals.

PERSONAL AND REAL-TIME CHALLENGES: Improve your daily routine by completing guided tasks or competing with other users from all over the world.

STATISTICS: Track your habits and analyze progress — build motivating chains of completed habits and perfect days. The longer your chain of completed habits, the more likely you will keep the streak going.”

Some positive reviews

• “This app is great for building daily habits, the concept is the gamification of habits. The scheduling works the way I want and it is intuitive.”~ Juan Leonard
• “Productive is really well made, it’s intuitive and very low friction. Does what it does and does so brilliantly. Kudos to the team, it is certainly helping change my life, habit by habit.” ~ Vishesh
• “I always want to build good habits but struggled to organize myself in a way which helps me to sustain the habits and achieve my personal and professional goals. This app helped me to not only go build good habit but also stay on track consistently.” ~ Deepak

Install the app here.

3. Strides: Goal & Habit Tracker

As their description on the app store says, “Track all your Goals & Habits in one flexible app. With Strides you can track anything — good or bad habits and SMART goals — with reminders to hold you accountable and charts to keep you motivated.

Recommended in The New York Times, Strides has been called “the most comprehensive, user-friendly, beautifully designed goal tracking app available.”

Imagine having all of your most important habits, routines, and goals together in one simple to-do list. Now you can. 

Track anything you want with four types:

1. Track good or bad Habits with a streak calendar.
2. Reach your Target goal value by a specific date.
3. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or rolling Average.
4. Complete a Project on time with milestones.”

Some positive reviews

• “I’ve used almost every habit tracking app, but this one seems too versatile in terms of tracking data.” ~ Vinod.
• “It is the only app which allows you to add 7 habits which is the most in any of the free apps and everything works great and it can really improve your life if used right. Kudos to the developers.” ~ Chja
• “The features of this app are perfectly fitted to everyone’s needs and the Variety of things you can monitor using this is what makes it stand out.” ~ Bharath.

Install the app here.

4. Habit — Daily Tracker

As their app store description says, “Daily Habit Tracker is a stylish goal-tracking app that nudges you to ensure you hit your targets.

Tick off your task every time you do it, and Habit will give you a percentage success rate. The more you use it and the more disciplined you are the higher your success rate and the better your progress report. You can also view this data at a glance on a graph. The app is completely free to use!

Why more than 900,000 users choose Daily Habit Tracker?

1. You don’t need to pay a penny to start building great habits.
2. Ad-free. We hate ads & don’t want to bother our users
3. Stats & Graphs. Track a clear overview of your progress.
4. Reminders. Receive a friendly notification on time.
5. Motivate yourself. Add motivation quotes to your habits.”

Some positive reviews

• “This is the only habit tracker app out there that I find useful because of its simple and intuitive interface.” ~ Nag
• “The simplistic and extremely user-friendly interface of the app makes it very versatile and simple to use. Would highly recommend it.” ~ Vartika
• “It’s one of the best habit tracking apps out there. Well thought out features like timely reminders and custom motivations help a lot when building a habit.” ~ Sarveshwar

Install the app here.

5. Simple Habit Tracker

As their app store description claims, “Simple Habit Tracker helps you to build good habits routine and change your life!

New Year Resolution is the perfect opportunity to plan and build positive life-changing habits and Make 2020 Your Best Year Ever!”

Some positive reviews

• “I have tried almost 12+ habit trackers. This is the only free app which gives you a way to track more than 3 habits a day.” ~ Gopi
• “I’ve tried so many habit trackers and this is the only one that’s free. For people who haven’t tried it please try it now I finally am following the habits I once wanted to.” ~ Blitz
• “I have used dozens of habit tracking apps before but this one beats most of them with its simple and elegant design.” ~ Pramod

Install the app here.

Watching TED talks have an amazing impact on most people. They are filled with the adrenaline rush of wanting to make an immediate change in their lives right away.

If you are a fan of watching TED talks and are trying to build better habits, this post is just for you. It discusses five TED talks that are powerful enough to help you build new habits and get rid of bad ones.

1. Judson Brewer: “A Simple Way to Break a Habit”

Length: 9 min. 24 sec.
Target: Learn to give up a bad habit.

Psychiatrist Judson Brewer talks about how we can break bad habits by being more curious about them. In this TED talk, Brewer explores the relationship between mindfulness and addiction and discusses how we can break away from the things we do even though we know they’re bad for us by being curious about them.

In an example, Brewer asked the people in his lab to be mindful about their breath while smoking. The participants weren’t forced to stop smoking, rather, they were asked to describe how their breath tastes and feels. Earlier, even though they knew cognitively that smoking was bad for them, being mindful about its impact on their breath made them feel revulsed.

One participant even commented, “Mindful smoking: smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals, YUCK!”

“This is what mindfulness is all about: Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviors, becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.” — Judson Brewer

Watch the talk here.

2. Christine Carter: “The 1-Minute Secret to Forming A New Habit”

Length: 10 min. 56 sec.
Target: Building new habits.

Most of us have struggled with starting a new resolution and being high on motivation. Later, the motivation runs out and we’re left struggling with reasons to stick with our new habit. In this talk, Sociologist Christine Carter shares a simple step to shift your mindset and help you stay on track to achieving your grandest ambitions.

In this talk, Christine Carter shares that motivation or energy aren’t the only things needed to build a habit that lasts. You don’t need extreme talent. You need only to be willing to do something that is terribly small and to remember that to keep doing it is better than nothing. 

“When we abandon our grand plans and great ambitions in favor of taking that first step, we shift. And paradoxically, it’s only in that tiny shift that our grand plans and great ambitions are truly born.” — Christine Carter

Watch the talk here.

3. Matt Cutts: “Try Something New For 30 Days”

Length: 3 min. 27 sec.
Target: Building a new habit.

If there is something you always wanted to do, but just couldn’t find the motivation to start, Matt Cutts, an early employee at Google has a simple suggestion: Try it for 30 days. 

In this talk, Matt Cutts suggests that instead of waiting for the perfect moment, we should just start and stick with any new habit we are trying to build for at least 30 days. Armed with the knowledge that these 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, holding on to your resolution will become much easier.

“I learned that when I made small, sustainable changes, things I could keep doing, they were more likely to stick. There’s nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges. In fact, they’re a ton of fun. But they’re less likely to stick.” — Matt Cutts

Watch the talk here.

4. Shlomo Benartzi: “Saving for Tomorrow, Tomorrow”

Length: 17 min, 29 sec. 
Target: Start saving money today.

It’s easy to convince ourselves that we will start saving money next week, but how about starting right now, even when our instinct is to spend it. In this talk, Economist Shlomo Benartzi says this is one of the biggest obstacles to saving enough for retirement and presents a solution on how we can flip this behavioral challenge into a behavioral solution.

“Self-control is not a problem in the future. It’s only a problem now.” — Shlomo Benartzi

Watch the talk here.

5. Dean Ornish: “Your Genes Are Not Your Fate”

Length: 3 min. 12 sec.
Target: Change your genetics by adopting healthy lifestyle habits.

Dean Ornish, a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute shares how adopting healthy lifestyle habits can affect a person at a genetic level. He gives an example that when you live healthier, eat better, exercise, and love more, your brain cells actually increase.

The speaker is a leading expert on fighting illness — particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes, and his expertise shines through the length of this short, but impactful talk.

“Our genes are not our fate, and if we make these changes — they’re a predisposition — but if we make bigger changes than we might have made otherwise, we can actually change how our genes are expressed.” — Dean Ornish

Watch the talk here.

“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.” — William James

The things we do in life, the heights we achieve, the goals we accomplish — all of them are a culmination of habits. What we choose to do every day will determine what we will eventually accomplish. That’s why it’s so important to build good habits and get rid of bad ones. 

This post lists six of the best books on habit-building that will help you build habits that stick. The writers are experts, and their insights will help you make better decisions every day and welcome lasting change in your life. 

Note: The descriptions are taken from the book blurb on Goodreads.

1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

2. Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry Roediger, Mark McDaniel

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. 

More complex and durable learning comes from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

3. Atomic Habits by James Clear

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

4. 30 Days By Marc Reklau

In this simple, fast-paced book you will be learning what it takes to create the life you want. 

30 Days is for people who are struggling, wanting to change their life, but they feel powerless and think change comes from the outside. They also keep doing the same things over and over expecting a different result, which Albert Einstein considered to be the purest form of insanity.

If you want to change your life, you have to change your habits and start doing small things differently every day.

Discover your enormous potential and…

•  Stop being a victim of the circumstances
• Stop waiting for the miracle to happen and become one
• Stop suffering and start creating the life you want
• Improve your self-confidence
• Improve your relationship with your spouse, colleagues, boss, etc.

30 Days is based on science, neuroscience, positive psychology, and real-life examples

5. Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

The world’s leading expert on habit formation shows how you can have a happier, healthier life: by starting small.

When it comes to change, tiny is mighty. Start with two pushups a day, not a two-hour workout; or five deep breaths each morning rather than an hour of meditation. In Tiny Habits, B.J. Fogg brings his experience coaching more than 40,000 people to help you lose weight, de-stress, sleep better, or achieve any goal of your choice. You just need Fogg’s behavior formula: make it easy, make it fit your life, and make it rewarding. Whenever you get in your car, take one yoga breath. Smile. Whenever you get in bed, turn off your phone. Give yourself a high five. 

Change can be easy — once it starts, it grows. Let B.J. Fogg show you exactly how.

6. Drive by Daniel Pink

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money — the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction at work, at school, and at home — is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does — and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation — autonomy, mastery, and purpose — and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

So, what are you waiting for? Find a life coach to unlock the next level in your life today!

The first mention of “Tiny Habits” was by Dr. BJ Fogg, a behavior scientist credited for founding the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University.

He is the New York Times bestselling author of Tiny Habits. He is also the creator of the Fogg Behavior Model that has helped thousands of people design for behavior change.

Tiny habits are what the name suggests: take things in tiny measures and work on small goals as opposed to larger ones that so often fail. When you break down a new habit to its smallest element, you feel less resistance to do it, and it becomes easier to incorporate that into your routine.

This post discusses a hundred examples of tiny habits you can use to either build or break a new habit in your life.

But do tiny habits really work?

Check out what some of these bloggers all over the world have to say about the transformative power of tiny habits.

The testimonials on BJ Fogg’s website are pure gold. Have a look at what these users are saying:

“Tiny Habits is the only method for change that worked for me.” — Josef B.

“Tiny Habits is a roadmap to a better you.” — Rob G.

“This is the most helpful self-help book I’ve ever read. As a performance psychologist, I love this approach.” — Sarah H.

“It really feels like magic.” — Ruth G.

“Tiny Habits is the most positive, realistic plan to change habits I’ve ever seen.” — Lee J.

“Tiny Habits gives me hope. The best part is the immediate results in my life — within the first 48 hours!” — Jenna C.

Blogger Scott Trimble writes about his experiment with tiny habits. Here are the three tiny habits he tried to build:

• After I pour a cup of coffee, I will fill my water bottle.
• After I read the news, I will open my music lessons book.
• After I walk the dog, I will do five push-ups.

After a week of experimenting with setting up the tiny habits, here’s what Trimble has to say:

“I was surprised by how tough it was to accurately think about the anchors in my daily routine. In my mind, I was thinking that I always read the news at home on my computer in the evening, but this week I found myself reading the news all over the place and at different times every day. Maybe it was just a hectic week. I’ll stick with the music book tiny habit next week to try to find out.”

“Tiny habits give you a sense of control. When you accomplish one thing, it may lead you to accomplish and celebrate the next. It gives you hope and leads you to continue down the path and eventually change your life.” — BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits

When asked to work with tiny habits for a long period of time, here’s what users of the habit-building and tracking app, Coach.Me had to say:

“I really like the tiny habits philosophy. This is the technique I use most. It helps me to see change and feel a sense of accomplishment. I would recommend Michelle and this process of self-discovery to anyone who is seeking to improve. ”— Anonymous

“I got hooked on a writing habit. My coach did a great job leading me through a tiny habit of gratitude journaling at night. Then I built on that to add my real goal which was regular journaling every morning.” — Daren

“I was coached in Tiny habits. I got up to 17 new tiny habits of which I’m still doing the majority. It has changed my morning routine and kept me looking for more anchors during the day to add on some additional tiny habits. I guess also thanks to Tiny Habits I started running again (Yes, my body is my temple), will start playing basketball again (on a soft level, hey I’m no longer that crazy youngster), and seeing other positive changes. Pushups I can easily do 20 now (and more), when I stop for a red light I start thinking about what makes me happy, I’m writing a lot more, and so on and so on.” — Bart

“Tint habits have been very helpful and motivating, his insight on using anchors for habit change was particularly helpful. ” — Anonymous

So, what are you waiting for? Find a life coach to unlock the next level in your life today!