7 Free Apps To Develop a Growth Mindset

7 Free Apps To Develop a Growth Mindset.

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It’s projected that the total amount of smartphone users will blow past the 5 billion mark by 2019. Depending on how you use your device that sits in your pocket, it can either be used as a major distraction or a resourceful tool. With the majority of users leaning towards the former, this article will hopefully give you more information to push you to the latter.

What is a growth mindset?

The phrase ‘growth mindset’ made famous by Dr. Carol Dweck, focuses on the attitude towards developing your learning and intelligence. Walking away from challenges, effort and criticism all fall under a fixed-mindset and as a result lead you to achieve less than your full potential. A growth mindset doesn’t shy away from a challenge and understands that effort is the key to mastery, failures are seen as learning opportunities and criticism is seen as a chance to improve. Developing a growth mindset is one of the main keys that’ll help unlock the door to a successful life.

Recommended book: Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential by Carol Dweck

Consistency is key

With the convenience of a smartphone sitting in our pockets for the majority of the day, we all have an endless amount of resource sitting at the end of our fingertips. Below are 7 apps that I use on a consistent basis. I stress the word ‘consistent’ because it’s the daily use of an app that is important to the development of a growth mindset.

Recommended reading: How to be consistent


A growth mindset is all about purposeful learning. Looking for some advice to help further your business? Perhaps some relationship advice? Or even information on how to be read faster? Whatever you decide, there’s always a learning opportunity with every book you open.

Even though the app is free not every book in the Kindle store is just as cheap, fortunately, digital books are a fraction of the price of the paperback equivalent. If you aren’t willing to invest the price of a cup of coffee on your development then you’ve got your priorities all wrong. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

Recommended books:

  1. Mastery - Robert Greene

  2. The Rise of Superman - Steven Kotler

  3. The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle


Can’t commit to reading a few hours from a book? How about something a little bit more bite size? With the slogan, “Put knowledge in your pocket”, Pocket is a useful app that allows you to save articles for future consumption. I’ve found this app really useful when dealing with new articles that I come across. When I see a headline that catches my eye, I’ll save it to my Pocket account for future reading. In addition, Pocket formats the text, images and embedded videos to fit perfectly on your device or computer screen, meaning you won’t be bothered by those annoying pop-ups anymore.

Recommended articles:

  1. How To Improve Your Memory

  2. How I Pay For My Education

  3. How to Learn Any Skill: 10 Steps and Why They Will Change Your Life

Any Podcast App

If reading, in general, isn’t your thing, I would then recommend listening to a good podcast. I like to listen to a good podcast whilst I’m working out at the gym or commuting to work. Unlike reading a book, you have the freedom to do something else whilst listening to an interview. However, don’t get too distracted, otherwise, you won’t learn anything from the podcast! A good podcast app allows you to play around with the playback speed, I’ve now grown accustomed to listening to interviews at double the speed, allowing me to learn more in less time.

Recommended listening:

  1. The Tim Ferriss Show

  2. The School of Greatness

  3. The Mission Daily

Any Habit Tracking App

Seeing effort as the path to mastery is a key trait to a growth mindset, putting in the work on a consistent basis enables you to grow at an exponential rate. Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s important to be patient and consistently put in the reps. Building good habits that promote a growth mindset (reading, journaling, meditating) will set you up for success. What helps me stay consistent and committed to my habits is by tracking it on a daily basis. Any habit tracking app will do, consistent use of the app is important.

Recommended apps:

  1. Habitbull

  2. Streaks

  3. Coach.me

Wim Hof Method

A growth mindset embraces a challenge. What better way to push yourself than by taking cold showers every morning? If you’ve never heard of Wim Hoffman and his methods, then you’re missing out on a whole load of benefits to both your physical and mental well-being. His methods consist of a series of controlled breathing, breath-holding, and cold therapy.

There is also an element of mindfulness with the Wim Hof Method, the breathing exercise allows you to focus on the breath which promote the beneficial practice. Mindfulness goes hand in hand with the development of a growth mindset, allowing you to become more aware of yourself and the thoughts that are going on in your head. The more you self-reflect, the more you are able to find solutions to any challenges that come your way, enabling you to come up with new ways to overcome any barriers and ultimately reach your goal.

Recommended reading: What is the Wim Hof Method?


In addition to the practice of mindfulness, I use Evernote to allow me to journal and document my thoughts. Being able to learn from past mistakes is crucial to a growth mindset. I like to use Evernote to document my mistakes allowing me to never forget and hopefully learn from it.

On top of that, whenever I come across information that I find interesting, I like to document it in a dedicated notebook and treat it as a commonplace book, this is essentially a scrapbook filled with information that I can refer to whenever it’s needed.

Recommended reading: How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book.”


Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day. I would love to say that 90% of those videos are educational but sadly it’s not. Rather than treating YouTube as a form of entertainment, why not see it as a tool for education? The amount of practical information available is endless and on top of that, it’s completely free. From learning new programs like Photoshop to solving a Rubix cube in under 90 seconds, I’ve learned an endless amount of skills all from YouTube. Make sure you’re taking full advantage of the app and not spending the majority of your time watching viral videos.

Recommended watching:

  1. Learning Swedish in three months

  2. Accelerated Learning

  3. Any video from TED

The right toolkit

It’s said that a bad technician blames his tools and that’s what these apps are, just tools. Don’t think that once you’ve downloaded them into your phone you’re now set for success. You need to take responsibility with integrating each app into your everyday life. There are hundred more tools out there that can make a difference, everything I mentioned above are my go-to apps. I have found that this combination works for me, but it may not for you. I encourage you to try them out first and if they don’t gel well, experiment until you can find the right combination.

Related article: Life Designer’s Toolkit


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