Three smartphone screens displaying a motivation and self-improvement app interface with features like challenge connection, quest opportunities, and media recommendations.
Challenges Dropdown

Overcome your own challenge or help someone else with theirs

Start with a challenge that matters, break it into smaller, achievable quests, and receive personalized recommendations. Gain support from trusted allies, track progress, and reflect on growth.

2023 International Serious Play Awards silver medal winner laurel emblem.

Silver Medal Winner - 2023 International Serious Play Awards

VAST Journey has been recognized with a Silver Medal at the 2023 International Serious Play Awards for its impactful ability to create transformational change in users' lives. This innovative app helps teens and their support networks face real-life challenges, guiding them to grow, learn, and succeed both inside and outside the app environment. With its proven ability to drive positive change, VAST Journey is now available for download on the App Store and Google Play.

How can it help me?

VAST Journey helps you break down life's challenges into clear, achievable steps through our personalized pathway system. Connect with trusted allies who champion your progress, leverage proven tools for success, and reflect meaningfully on your growth. Whether you're navigating personal obstacles or supporting others, our structured approach transforms challenges into milestones of achievement.

Features

  • Choose your challenge

    Pick your own challenge or decide to support someone else with theirs. Choose from a list of 120 challenges, start with the most important one, and add more later if needed.

  • Get personalized recommendations

    Receive media suggestions customized to your needs. Pick the types of recommendations you prefer, like books, videos, songs, and many more.

  • Select your quests

    Each challenge comes with quests created for specific outcomes, with clear objectives and rewards. All quests are ranked or categorized by difficulty, time commitment, or required skills

  • Power-ups

    Reach for power-ups that include techniques like mindfulness or motivation boosters, along with practical tools such as planners and timers.

  • Invite allies for support

    Connect with allies and have regular check-ins to help you stay on track. Watch the activity feed of the hero, chat with them, follow up, and observe their journaling.

  • Opportunity cards

    Opportunity Cards focus on skills or actions to aid your challenge. They offer journal prompts, tips for overcoming setbacks, and help prioritize your tasks. Cards include "Rules for Success," a how-to guide. Set personal preferences to make the best use of your time.

  • Scheduling quest work

    The scheduling tool syncs with external calendars and sends automatic reminders, allowing you to adjust your schedule based on availability. You can prioritize tasks, mark certain tasks as "urgent," or break down larger quests into smaller, manageable sub-tasks to stay organized and on track.

  • Obstacle recognition

    Obstacles are categorized by type (emotional, social, or environmental) and are rated based on their impact. A suggestion system presents common obstacles related to the challenge you’ve chosen, making it easier to identify and address potential roadblocks.

  • Journal & learn from setbacks

    Use your journal to reflect on your progress, setbacks, and the lessons learned. Your journal offers prompts to help you reflect on your journey, set daily goals, and track your emotional and mental state.

How it works

Take the role of a Hero, an Ally for support, or a Mentor for supervision.

Three smartphone screens showing a mobile app interface for selecting role and challenges in a personal journey. The first screen asks the user's role, the second allows them to select challenges like 'Family dynamics,' and the third lets them choose quests related to those challenges, such as 'Play of the Land.'

1

Identify the challenge

Choose from over 120+ challenges designed to help develop essential skills, each broken down into smaller quests that make the process manageable. These quests guide users toward overcoming obstacles and building positive habits.

Mobile app interface with three screens showing a welcome page, a quest overview with a family group photo, and a power-up description involving a game.

2

Start your journey

Quests come with detailed "Rules for Success," guiding users on how to overcome obstacles. Each quest offers the chance to build character traits, boost new skills, and stay focused on the journey ahead. Select pre-generated quests to begin overcoming challenges and start making positive changes.

Mobile app interface with 10 cards for self-improvement actions and a smartphone screen displaying a welcome message.

3

Seize the opportunity

After starting a quest, Opportunity Cards will appear to break down tasks into bite-sized steps. These cards will feature expert-curated media recommendations, such as books, videos, songs, games, and activities, that align with each user’s goals. Cards also provide journal prompts, focus on overcoming setbacks, and help users organize their priorities.

Two smartphone screens display a mobile app interface named "My Allies" with "Allies" and "Messages" tabs. Contacts list includes Kevin, Fiona, Casey, and Ariel. Notifications and profile icons appear around the screens.

4

Invite allies

Overcoming challenges is easier with the right support. Invite trusted allies who will stand by you on your journey. By staying connected with them, you’ll keep your hero on track. These allies bring their own superpowers to help you push forward and achieve your goals.

Two smartphone screenshots of a journaling app. The left screen shows the 'My Journal' dashboard with entries dated November 5th, "Journal Prompt" and "Acknowledge the Positive." The right screen displays a detailed entry for November 13, 2024, titled "Branching Out" with reflection prompts and a toggle to "Share with Allies." Both screens include a menu bar with icons at the bottom.

5

Reflect and learn from setbacks

Use your journal to reflect on your progress, setbacks, and the lessons learned. Track any obstacles along the way and understand how each setback is an opportunity for growth.

Mobile app interface showing quest progress titled 'Branching Out' with objectives to understand family history. Features include rules for success, new media activities, family dynamics, journal prompts, and positive acknowledgment tips. The screen displays a tree image, menu items, and tasks related to genealogy and social intelligence development.

6

Review your progress

Take a moment to look back at the Opportunity Cards you’ve accessed. This will show the obstacles you've overcome, the power-ups you've activated, and the allies you've gathered to support your journey. Explore new media and activities, reflect on journal prompts, and organize your priorities. As you reflect on your story, you’ll see how each experience has helped you build the traits you've explored and the skills you've boosted, moving you closer to becoming the hero of your own story.

Reflect & recharge

Journaling is your personal space to process experiences, track progress, and gain clarity. Take time to reflect and recharge as you move forward on your journey.

Conquer your challenges

VAST Journey empowers you to face your obstacles head-on. Celebrate overcoming challenges and reaching new milestones on your path to growth.

A mobile app interface displaying progress sections for 'Traits' and 'Skills.' The 'Traits' tab lists character traits like curiosity, love, and creativity. The 'Skills' tab includes skills like communication and project management with checkboxes. A button at the bottom reads 'I have completed this quest.'"}

Character traits explored & boosted skills

With Journey, you’ll explore and develop key character traits that help you grow. Each trait is nurtured through your actions and challenges, helping you build skills that support your journey toward personal growth. Your progress in these traits is tracked, allowing you to see how you're strengthening skills that align with your goals.

Let’s get started!

Testimonial

Real users, real experiences. See how our app is making a difference in their daily lives!

The Journey App is more than just an app on your phone, it is a life investment. This one stop shop allows users to navigate topics of their choosing in a way that benefits themselves or others they are looking to help.  The wide variety of topics to choose from along with the resources available per topic gives endless support. Beyond the support, the application is designed in a game-like format, making it exciting for the user and challenging for oneself (at their choosing). Do you want to read information, hear music, watch a video, play a game, whatever it is, the app takes the traits or topics you are looking to expand and allows navigation to better equip yourself for life!  As an ally/mentor, I was able to complete a quest specific to conquering negative emotions and earn rewards and as a hero, I looked more into myself and used games to navigate kitchen skills.

The variety and options are endless but within reason and this makes the app well worth it, and it is still growing! Use it for yourself, another person, connect with others and resources- I have found the app to be useful on a personal level and as an ally for those I care about around me.

Default profile picture silhouette of a person on a gray background.

- Stephanie Caffrey

FAQs

  • VAST Journey is a system that provides tools to help users facing a challenge in life break it down into quests, which they can undertake using the resources available within the VAST Journey app.

  • The current list of challenges and available resources is designed to address the challenges faced by individuals aged 14-26. They can use the system as a hero. Any adult who wants to help someone overcome a challenge can use the system as a mentor.

  • During the onboarding process, users can skip this step and still start using VAST Journey to overcome challenges. The allies feature is meant to help users connect with people whose knowledge and support they trust. Allies are people the user values and can turn to for help while working on a specific quest.

  • As part of the onboarding process, the user is asked to identify the challenge from the list. If the challenge is not there, the user can click the “My challenge isn’t here” button and complete the requested information. Our team will review the request and make all efforts to add the resources that will allow this challenge to be addressed by users of VAST Journey. An email will be sent to the initiating user, letting them know that VAST Journey has the resources to help them create transformational change in addressing their challenge.

  • A quest is a smaller part of a larger challenge, designed to give users clear objectives and rewards for completion. Breaking challenges into manageable goals helps users track their progress. VAST Journey was created by In-Formation, LLC to give users control over their journey. The app encourages users to focus on one quest at a time. They can switch between quests as needed, but the design aims to increase the chances of success by helping users focus on completing smaller tasks. While users can start a new quest anytime, they must finish a previous one before gaining full access to the app for the new quest.

  • All journal entries are secured based on quests and can be viewed when you access the quest records.

  • Quest progress can be accessed in the quest menu on the app. In addition, on the left burger menu, accessible from the home screen, you can access all previous entries in the journal, your priorities, and how you chose to make the best use of time by date.

  • Opportunity cards offer users tools and resources to help them make progress on their quests and challenges. They provide actionable steps that support the user’s journey toward overcoming obstacles.

    These cards will keep being suggested as long as a quest is active and the challenge remains unresolved.

  • All media recommendations and activities are saved within the quests they are linked to. If you’re working on a different quest, you’ll receive media suggestions specific to that quest.

  • On the home screen, at the top right, you’ll see two arrows. Click on them, and you'll have the option to add a new challenge.