Many people suffer from low self-esteem and confidence. It can be tough to improve your relationships, career, and life when you don’t feel confident in yourself. You may not even have a clue where to start! Don’t worry—I’ve done the research for you so that you know exactly what books will improve your self-esteem or build your confidence.
Why Is Low Self-Esteem Or Confidence Happening?
Low self-esteem and poor confidence are often caused by the following:
- Parents who didn’t build their children up when they were younger or wanted to let them improve themselves.
- A bad situation that happened in your life, such as bullying at school or being bullied online where you’re afraid of what might happen if you speak out.
- A problem with your physical appearance, such as being overweight, having a scar or birthmark, or whatever.
- An illness that you’re dealing with and aren’t feeling okay with yourself for it.
These are all examples of things that can cause low self-esteem and poor confidence to happen. What do these situations have in common? They are often out of our control.
The good news is that if you improve your self-esteem and build your confidence, you can improve those things in the future. We do need to put in some work.
The work I am referring to is the work to build confidence and self-esteem not to meet standards set by someone else, but for our own benefit.
Self-esteem and confidence develop from a young age. The environment we lived in shapes our vision of ourselves. This comes from our interaction with our surroundings. Talking and listening to people and how we treat each other.
Most of the time, low self-esteem comes from negative treatment by others at a young age. That gives us the impression that we aren’t “good” enough.
As they say, it is never too late to change. Yet, there are tons of factors that can help you with your goal. That includes improving your state of mind, consulting friends, or getting therapy.
Also, seek inspiration. You can find inspiration in songs, movies or tv shows, and books. There are so many books that can create images that inspire the mind. With this, you can wonder, relate, and gain references to how you want to change and achieve your goals.
Here is my compiled list of books that will help strengthen self esteem and build confidence.
Top 10 Books to Help Adults with Self-Esteem Issues
1. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brené Brown
The Gifts of Imperfection became one of the most renowned books in the world. The book reached 2 million copies sold and is recognized as a New York Times Best-seller.
The book talks about feeling low about yourself as a normal situation in life. But, it also mentioned that staying at the bottom trench of your life is “the event” that’s not normal. It offers the reader to recognize themselves as more than what they think of themselves. Brené Brown wrote some scientific ways to cope with hopelessness and embracing imperfection.
2. The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field – Nathaniel Branden
Every study result of Nathaniel Branden is in his book “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem.” Based on the six pillars that he demonstrates the advantage of building self-esteem.
“The Six Pillars of Self Esteem” also gives readers the idea of why self-esteem can improve personal health. Including having a healthier mind, psyche, and body.
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem is a strongly suggested book for psychological well-being. I recommend it to anyone who wants to enable themselves or others with a positive self-appreciation.
3. Ten Days to Self-Esteem – David D Burns
If your daily accomplishments are affecting how you feel, then read this book.
Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David Burns takes you through a heavenly excursion of affirmation and self-revelation. It discusses three things that are important to have a safe self-confidence framework. These are recognition, empathy, and advancement.
The techniques and models referenced will help you with uncertainties.
4. What to Say When You Talk to Your Self – Shad Helmstetter
Oftentimes, the one who hurts an individual the most is ourselves. The criticism that we put to ourselves harms us more than what the environment says. Dr. Shad Helmstetter tries addressing the issue through his book ‘What to Say When You Talk to Your Self.’
This self-improvement book is full of information on how to rehearse more positive thoughts. It has tips about how to counter feelings of low self-esteem and take charge of your happiness. This book is written in an easy and clear way for people of all ages.
5. What’s Right with Me: Positive Ways to Celebrate Your Strengths, Build Self-Esteem, and Reach Your Potential – Carlene DeRoo and Carolyn DeRoo
People are more likely to think about the things that went wrong than the things that went right. This book is about how people can make themselves feel better when they have tough times.
The book is moving and helps in developing a stable self-appreciation. It is because of logical reasoning that we can see why positive thinking is just the beginning stage to having a good life. And it discusses how small or big changes in your life can help you reach this goal.
6. Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! – Tony Robbins
Tony Robbins tells us how to understand our feelings. This will lead to better self-acceptance. Tony Robbins is a good speaker and writer. He has given us some great advice in his book, Awaken the Giant Within.
This book teaches you how to be independent and confident. If you want to gain control of your life, read this book.
7. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind – Joseph Murphy
The subconscious is the main thrust behind what we pull into our lives. In his book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Joseph Murphy writes about how you can change your fate by creating positive energy in your own mind.
This book follows a new way of thinking about bliss. It blends parts of belief, tradition, writing, and rationality to clarify what bliss is. The book also explains how we can develop it inside ourselves. Most people do not know that some things are not proven and they believe in them anyway because the media says so. This book is for those who want to improve their lives and have a better understanding of themselves.
8. The New Psycho-Cybernetics – Maxwell Maltz
This Dr. Maxwell Maltz book is about setting a goal and then executing it. His book has been updated and revised many times.
The New Psycho-Cybernetics is an excellent guide for anyone who wants to improve in many areas of life.
This book can be used by people from all walks of life, including those with low self-esteem or depression. It will help you see a bigger picture so that you can see how much better things could be if you keep going.
9. Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) – Stephen C. Hayes
Confidence and self-esteem start from tolerating ourselves – including our shortcomings and underperformances. This is what recognition and responsibility treatment give to people. The cycle of act encourages us to separate torment and enduring. The book ‘Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life’ teaches this part of prosperity.
Author Stephen Hayes has given us the best ideas that will help us with our problem and let us see what is going on. This book is a good way to deal with problems of feeling down, being anxious, or being stressed. This book helps you find how to be happy inside of your pain.
10. Healing Your Emotional Self: A Powerful Program to Help You Raise Your Self-Esteem, Quiet Your Inner Critic, and Overcome Your Shame – Beverly Engel
Youth encounters are very important. They shape how we think about ourselves. If a child is being mistreated or feels bad, it can make them feel worse. It can also hurt their self-confidence. Healing Your Emotional Self is about how encounters with others in early life affect your self-esteem. It is also about how you can retrain yourself from these early encounters – good and bad.
This book is for people who need to know about how to help a person with low self-esteem and overcome their past.
3 Books to Help You Deal With Low Self-Esteem
1. You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay
The main thought of this self-improvement book is that you can get what you want in life if you have the right psychological mindset. Author Louise L. Hay has shared her life experience with how people can change by thinking good thoughts about themselves.
2. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living – Dalai Lama
If you could exemplify serenity and a solid self-framework, The Dalai Lama would be on the list. His experiences can show us the meaning of being alive.
The Art of Happiness is a collection of the Dalai Lama’s thoughts on how to be happy. The book talks about one-on-one conversations the writer had with people. The conversations happened during everyday life events. It is a foundation book for unending motivation, self-esteem, and significant presence.
3. Matrix Energetics: The Science and Art of Transformation – Richard Bartlett
Richard Bartlett’s theory is convincing. When the author explored energy change, he started to study it. It can be a quick and long-lasting solution for people who have problems with their attitude. The book tells about how the author explored and how people can use his principles to make themselves strong. This book offers an alternate way to build confidence. It is more energizing than other ways.
Top 3 Kid-Friendly Books to Help Build Confidence
1. The Lion Inside – Rachel Bright
This self-improvement guide is loaded with morals and images that are simple for youngsters to identify and comprehend. The author Rachel Bright is trying to develop the ability for kids to express what they are feeling and why. ‘The Lion Inside’ is a good book for kids aged 5-12. The story will help them be more confident and certain in themselves.
2. It’s Okay To Be Different (Todd Parr Classics) – Todd Parr
Self-esteem is an important message. It is good to share your ideas. The creator of the book “The Feel Good Book” has a good way to teach about self-assurance. New York Times Best-selling author Todd Parr has created “It’s Okay To Be Different” about how to be happy and confident. It has illustrations and stories that tell you how to do it. This book teaches children to be strong.
3. I Am Enough – Grace Byers
“I Am Enough” is a book about being good and feeling good. It teaches kids to think of themselves and make sure they are enough. Grace Byers has given us all the best advice on how to get to know your motivation for living. You should use clear thinking to see what is happening in your life.
4 Self-Esteem Books That Are Advocated Among Teenage Girls
1. Chocolate For A Teen’s Soul: Life-changing Stories For Young Women About Growing Wise And Growing Strong – Kay Allenbaugh
This book has more than 50 stories about love and relationships. This book talks about things that girls have to deal with. They might have already dealt with these things or will in the future and the book can help them know what they should do. From first love to first jobs, and other challenges, “Chocolate for a Teen’s Soul” offers advice for dealing with teen problems. It will help you to stay confident.
2. The Real Rules for Girls – Mindy Morgenstern
The Real Rules for Girls is about how girls can feel bad inside. It helps give them advice on how to not feel bad. The book is about everything from dealing with parents, what it feels like to be in love and how hormones go up and down. Girls should read this book to find out more about themselves.
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls – Donna Dale Carnegie
This book is about how to make friends and be a good person for teenage girls. It is written by Dale Carnegie’s daughter, Donna, who talks about his teachings. This new edition was made to help teenage girls on their way to becoming self-assured friends and leaders.
4. The Teen Girl’s Anxiety Survival Guide: Ten Ways to Conquer Anxiety and Feel Your Best (The Instant Help Solutions Series) –Lucie Hemmen PhD
Learn how to improve your self-esteem with the help of this book. It’s called “The Teen Girl’s Anxiety Survival Guide”. This guide is packed full of compelling advice on bettering one’s life and happiness. The author Lucie Hemmen Ph.D. has been a therapist for over 20 years, working with adolescents in schools, specializing in anxiety and depression. This book has ten ways that are easy to practice and improve your self-esteem day by day.
3 Books To Help You Establish Your Self-Worth
1. The Magic of Thinking Big – David J. Schwartz
If you want to learn more about self-confidence, read this book. It is a good resource for information. The Magic of Thinking Big is a book that teaches you about how to change your thinking. The author, David J. Schwartz, accepts that if we are not prepared to recognize our qualities and weaknesses, then we will never be able to break free from uncertainty.
2. Think & Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
What we have in our hearts is the most important. It is not about how much money we have in our wallets. Napoleon Hill has written about how to be sure in your life and how to make yourself happy. He says that you can do this by improving your mind. The book is about how you find yourself and build yourself up. It is hard to break this framework that you have made for yourself.
3. The Power of Positive Thinking – Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
This book by Dr. Norman V. Peale is about how you can replace negative feelings with good feelings. With positivity, we will be happy because of the mental change we can make. This can help us feel better about ourselves and others too.
Dr. Peale set the tone of the book with modern findings and presented it in a personal way. This book has information about setting an objective and how to achieve your life goals.
Having Problems With Self-Image? Try Reading These 3 Books
1. Body Confidence: The Scientific Approach on How to Shine From Within – Dr. Katherine E. Iscoe
A critical piece of how we see ourselves is the way we look. Especially for young people, the way they look often determines the way they see themselves. Combined with social norms and the pursuit of excellence, self-perception impacts how we see ourselves.
Dr. Katherine Iscoe has written a book about how to feel good about yourself and how to be happy.
The author has included helpful advice on the effects of how others react to us, which can be good or bad. Also advice on how to manage negative criticism. This is a suggestion for people who are adolescents, ladies, and anyone else who wants to show their qualities. It can be hard when things are not what you want them to be. But it is important to remember that everything changes so you can look past that disappointment.
2. Mindsight: Change Your Brain And Your Life – Daniel J Siegel
Daniel Siegel has done a lot of research on how the brain works and is trying to figure out how we can make it better. He also writes about new ways that people can think about themselves.
He presented the idea of ‘mindsight’. It means to use cerebrum science and psychotherapy techniques together. In his book, Siegel teaches us how to deal with problems. We can do this in a lot of different ways and then we will be able to get out of them.
This book goes with the writer’s experience. It has information that you can use in your life. Siegel has thought about the problems that come with having a helpless mental self-view and how to solve them. He thinks that there are many different ways to solve these problems, like social fear and relationship trouble. He has offered solid approaches in his book “Mindsight”.
3. Who Moved My Cheese? – Spencer Johnson
This is among my favorite books. The illustrative approach to anticipate change and overcome obstacles is wonderful.
The book, Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, tells us about how we can improve ourselves. We need to know what our qualities and shortcomings are. Then we can use them to find happiness in life.
This book is a great read. It can help you with self-improvement.
7 Books For General Perspective About Building Confidence
1. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living – Dale Carnegie
Dread, uncertainty, and stress can be crippling. If we have any of these issues it can prevent us from achieving what we want.
Mr. Carnegie wrote a book that has lessons from night classes he taught about the most effective way to beat stress. Anyone who wants to take out the crippling impacts of dread and stress from their lives should read “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”. This will help people obtain and maintain certainty in their life.
2. Unstoppable Confidence: How to Use the Power of NLP to Be More Dynamic and Successful – Kent Sayre
This book focuses on the mind. It’s about how to improve your self-confidence and build it up so you can get what you want in life.
The writer has included practical tips that will help people improve their confidence for personal success. This includes information from NLP, which is a powerful way of getting better at things we already do.
This book will improve your life and make you more confident. It can help with anything from relationships to work. This is a good read for people who want success at everything they do or just need some tips on how to get unstuck in their lives because this book has them.
This book will teach you about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). You can learn to be better at what you already know and stop being afraid of things. In the event that you are new to NLP, it is a logical way to deal with things like correspondence, self-improvement, and psychotherapy. It teaches you logical ways in which to think about things and change how you see the world.
This book has a lot of ideas from Tony Robbins. You can use these same ideas to develop self-assurance.
3. Feel The Fear and Do it Anyway – Susan Jeffers
Susan Jeffers gives good advice for overcoming sadness and having a feeling of uncertainty. From her experience, Susan Jeffers answered questions about confidence and even annoyance. This can make you stronger, more active, and be more confident.
This book has a few practical things you can do to help you feel more confident. You should try these things out and see if they work for you.
4. How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships -Leil Lowndes
When we are talking to people, we might get nervous and this might make us seem like we don’t have confidence. If you’ve ever felt a lack of self-assurance when speaking with co-workers, your boss, strangers, or the opposite sex, this book will help you to feel less vulnerable.
Certainty when speaking is one of the best abilities you can have to be successful in your profession, relationships, and life. Read this book if you need to improve your ability to communicate in any situation.
5. How to Win Friends & Influence People -Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People has proven to be a great read for people who want to improve their self-esteem and build their confidence. This book provides numerous self-assurance improvements that will help you improve your memory, convey a stronger message, and make others more likely to be drawn to you.
This book was written to show people how to overcome their fear of public speaking and build confidence in other aspects of life. People often find confidence boosts on the other side of anxiety: public speaking, for instance, can reduce your inhibitions.
The book was published in 1936, but the strategies it provides are still relevant and applicable today. The author offers a lot of valuable insights that will improve your self-esteem and build confidence when speaking publicly about any topic.
This is a must-read for anyone who has issues with public speaking or building their confidence to present themselves more effectively.
6. The Confidence Gap -Russ Harris
The Confidence Gap is a good resource for people who want to improve their self-esteem and build up their confidence. The author provides insightful advice on how to improve your sense of worth, reduce anxiety, overcome critical thoughts, improve your relationships with others, and stop being worried about things that are out of your control.
This book will help improve your life by teaching you how to be more confident.
7. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things -Robert Fulghum
This book is centered more around simplicity and common sense but I wanted to include it because sometimes that’s all you need to improve self-esteem and build confidence. It offers actionable advice on how to improve your life.
The author of this book does not write like you are reading an academic journal article, but more like he’s telling you stories about what works in real life.
Conclusion
This has been the most extensive list of books on improving self-esteem and building confidence. These 33 books can help you with your confidence and self-esteem issues. But it will only help if you take the time to take care of yourself. Read one, listen to one, take notes, and apply what you learn.
Self-confidence is one of the hardest traits to create, but with a little help you can start seeing your self-image improve. Changing yourself from the inside out will be an uphill battle, and it will take time before you find that true appreciation for yourself.
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