Best Goal-Setting Apps

Way of Life is the ultimate habit-building app. You get to try the app out for free. For $3.99 you can unlock it to add an unlimited number of items (up from a limit of three). Simply add items to your “journal” and every day the app will ask you “yes” or “no.” Local notifications are used to remind you. Some items like “late night snacks” are bad habits and for those it is better to mark no. You can also set up personalized entries that you mark whether yes or no is good. By creating this journal you can really focus in on what you need to work on. The trend tab allows you to see a graph of how you are doing. The setup guide is very helpful in getting up and running. Way of Life is an essential app for anyone struggling getting on the right track.

Formerly known as Lift, Coach.me is an essential when it comes to meeting your goals. Simply set your goal or goals in this beautiful app, turn on your style of coaching, and achieve it. What makes this app an essential is how you can personalize your style of coaching. Whether you prefer an actual coach, reminders, or just a cheerleader along the way, this app will do it for you.

Habit List is a great app if you're looking for something that does a little bit of everything and looks good while doing it. It utilizes the powerful "streaking" method so that you can stay motivated to reach that goal. Scheduling is flexible, allowing you to choose between specific days, non-specific days, and intervals. This app also includes reminders, graphs, font options, passcode locks, and more.

Checkmark Goals is a very simple app that helps you achieve your dreams. The esthetics of this app are actually quite elegant and there are no annoying ads to be found. Just jot down your goals, check them off, and keep track of your goals.

Habit Factor is one of the pricier options at $6.99. There is a free version available if you want to try it out. You do get some cool functionality in this app. The Streaks app functionality is included in this app. You can track goals as well as habits. Just like Way of Life, you can analyze your results. There are also inspirational quotes included in this app. However, we feel that $6.99 is too much and the experience of Way of Life is a better one at $3.99.

HabitSeed is a sweet and simple habit forming app. It sports a neat little visual of a tree that is, in a sense, your new habit that you are working on forming. All habits are preloaded into this app and your goal is to consecutively execute that habit for 21 days. If you are successful, your habit will grow into a beautiful (and completely virtual) tree.

Streaks is the app for someone that wants a simple user interface with all of the features. You can add as many goals as you'd like and see them in a list-like view or a full calendar screen. You can even add notes and reminders to your goal calendar in this app.

If you're looking for something that tells you precisely how you are doing, then you're going to want something like Strides. This app is jam-packed with a variety of goals and it displays your progress in many different chart illustrations. Strides would be ideal for a visual learner.

This app is the most basic and stripped down a motivational app can be. The interface is a calendar in month view. The idea behind this is to put an "X" on the day that you've done what you need to work towards your goal and to continue adding an "X" everyday thereafter. Once you break the chain, you have to start all over. This is an ideal app for building habits. Unfortunately, this app hasn't been optimized for the iPhone 5 yet and does contain ads.

WorkOnIT is a nice app for tracking goals, but it leaves us wanting more. Yes, you can set your goals and this app organizes them, but it isn't as nice as the other apps in the prior two categories.

Flourish Goals is another app that isn't technically bad. In fact, the idea of it is actually fantastic and original. The interface is catchy and fun, but it just doesn't offer as much as its competition.