Motivational App Lift Is Literally Changing My Life

I've fallen in love with an iPhone app called Lift. Its helped me solve a tough problem: how to stay motivated in building new good habits and while ditching old bad habits.

I'm actually a pretty motivated person. I work out, floss my teeth, and eat healthy (at least most of the time). But there seems to be a motivational glass ceiling when I try to do much bigger changes in my life.

Not sure how it works for you, but for me it works like this:

I vow to myself to stop doing something like snacking on cheese. It's high in fat and my body doesn't love dairy. Or I vow to myself to start doing something like spending 15 minutes a day meditating.

Then I do it for a day or so and then life happens and I find myself home at night with a plate of cheese and crackers in front of me, or I find myself getting to the end of the day realizing that I didn't meditate, and am too tired to try.

Enter Lift. You download the app (free, Android, or iPhone, or sign up on the website) and then you join a challenge. The challenge is lead by a "Lift coach." Other like-minded individuals also join the challenge. Then you check in every day and you all create the new habit, or stop the old habit, together.

Lift is a San Francisco startup that was incubated in Obvious Corp, which is operated by some of Twitter's founders. It has raised $2.5 million from investors such as RRE*, Spark Capital and SV Angel.

In December, I joined the 25 for 25 Challenge. The challenge is to workout every day for at least 25 minutes from December 1 - 25, to counteract the calorie-laden party month with extra activity. I work out regularly but, until this month, not every day.

I told a few friends about the challenge and they signed up, too.

We're half-way through and I haven't missed a day. One time, I got home from a party at 11:30 p.m. and still got on my bike trainer and pedaled. (I thought, "It's only 25 minutes. No excuses.")

Would I have done that without Lift? No.

You can join all kinds of challenges: Health things like flossing your teeth, eating more veggies, stopping nail biting, using your Fitbit. Personal development things like writing, meditating, daily de-cluttering. Fitness things like training for a race, building strength, learning new Yoga poses.

I realize that we're knee-deep into the holiday season, weeks before New Year's resolutions. But when the time comes, consider adding some motivation to your life through your iPhone, tablet or PC.

It's working for me.

*RRE is also an investor in Business Insider