Make Prayer a Habit with the Lift App

A few years ago I realized the power of making prayer a part of my daily routine. I had to admit to myself that while I did pray a lot, it wasn't really a part of my everyday life. I just kind of prayed when I felt like it or when I needed it the most.

There is an important distinction that we need to make for ourselves: do I pray when I feel like it or do I make prayer a priority in my everyday life? 

So for the past few years, I've made prayer a habit. I've set aside specific times of day when to pray and make sure I do it daily: first thing in the morning, the 6:00 a.m. Angelus prayer, on the way to work, before I begin work, the noon Angelus, and bedtime prayers.

The biggest challenge when starting a new prayer habit is to keep yourself accountable so you don't forget to pray.

Lately, I've been using a new app to make sure I don't lose my daily prayer habits. The app is called Lift and it works on both mobile devices and your computer browser.

4 Reasons Lift Will Improve Your Prayer Life

Lift offers an easy-to-use format for checking in on your daily habits. It also includes a large community of people who also use the app and can give each other props and show how they have met their daily challenges.

Here is how Lift has helped me get better at praying every day:

1. It is fun to click that check button. 

There is something psychologically addicting about checking things off our to do lists. The same goes for lift. Logging in or opening the app on my phone and then clicking that large check button makes me feel good. It makes me feel accomplished. It's simple, I know, but it works.

2. Momentum is motivating. 

When you check something off in a given day, it tracks your progress. So you can see if you are running a three, five, ten, or twenty-day streak. Once you start, it is hard to allow yourself to break the chain!

3. The community motivates. 

When I see other people in the Lift community praying the Rosary for the 50th+ time, it gets me motivated to do the same. The community helps. It gets you excited and shows that the daily prayer habit is possible.

It is also great to get "Props" and comments from other people in the Lift community. The more people there, the better!

4. They say it takes twenty-one days to build a habit. 

Research shows that twenty-one days are a good marker for solidifying a habit. Once we do something every day for twenty-one days, we are much more likely to continue to do it as a habit each day.

Prayers I Pray in Lift 

I started using Lift when I wanted to make the Rosary a part of my daily prayer practice. As of this writing, I'm riding a thirty-one day streak within Lift (check out Jared’s Pray the Rosary habit).

Check out my profile to see how I'm doing today (Jared’s Lift Profile) and connect with me if you’re interested in joining the Lift community.

I've also been using Lift for praying the daily Angelus prayer in the mornings and midday. Plus, I started a habit of doing some timed writing for ten minutes (a technique I used to write this post).

Check out Lift and sign up. It's free!

See you there!

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Copyright 2014 Jared Dees