7 Best Apps To Improve Self-Esteem : [How to Make 2023 Amazing]

Do you use your smartphone in your daily life? I know I do.

Our mobile devices can be a distraction, but they are also useful in being more productive in 2023 and even becoming better ourselves.

One way that I can improve myself is by making sure I have healthy self-esteem. I devote time to my personal growth by developing a positive self-image almost daily.

What are you doing to improve your self-esteem? How does anyone build self-esteem?

Finding ideas online is one way to get started. You can find lists of things to do and things not to do from different sources—some reputable, others, not so much.

Building healthy self-esteem requires work—and not just reading!

Smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives; why not use them to help us improve our self-esteem?

Here are the best self-esteem apps that I suggest!

1. Calm – Meditate, Sleep, Relax

Calm is the #1 app for sleep and meditation. Discover a happier, healthier you through our meditations, sleep stories, music, and more.

Who is Calm for?

Calm is for anyone, whether you’re brand new to meditation or a seasoned expert. It’s also for anyone who needs a mental break, a soothing sound, or a peaceful night’s rest. Our guided meditations are available in lengths of 3 to 25 minutes, so you can choose the perfect length to fit your schedule.

Topics include:

• Calming Anxiety
• Managing Stress
• Deep Sleep
• Focus and Concentration
• Relationships
• Breaking Habits
• Gratitude
• Self-Esteem

The Calm app also features:

New Daily Meditation

Learn the life-changing skill of meditation with a new Daily Calm every day. We have meditations that are only 10 minutes long and can help you ease into work or study, or unwind before bed.

Sleep Stories

Calm has over 100 Sleep Stories, which are like bedtime stories for adults, narrated by well-known voices like Matthew McConaughey, LeBron James, Kate Winslet, Laura Dern, Lucy Liu & more.

Music

Discover a music library that grows every week, with exclusive tracks from top artists like Keith Urban, Lindsey Stirling, and even Disney — all Yeah engineered to help your mind relax, focus, and get into a state of flow.

Movement

Get out of your head and into your body. Learn mindful movement and gentle stretching for every body type with Calm’s short video lessons.

Masterclass

To begin your meditation practice, try life-changing 7-day and 21-day programs, taught by world-renowned experts in the field of mindfulness.

Soundscapes

Calm your nerves and relax your mind with more than 30 soothing nature sounds and scenes to use during meditation, yoga, or to help you sleep. Try out LeBron’s favorite soundscape, “Rain on Leaves.”

More

Use breathing exercises to help you relax, unguided and open-ended meditation where you are the leader, and track your progress with daily streaks and time spent meditating.

Calm is free to download and use. There are never any ads and some of the programs and features are free forever. Some content is only available through an optional paid subscription.

The paid version is $69.99/year billed annually with a 7-day free trial. Alternatively, you can get a one-time lifetime subscription for $399.99.

What is Calm?

Calm’s mission is to make the world a happier and healthier place. It’s both simple and big. Through Calm’s website, blog, and app—filled with meditations, sleep stories, music, movement, and more—Calm is redefining what mental health care looks like in 2023 and beyond. With over 100 million users worldwide, 100,000 new users daily, and Calm’s growing partnerships with major companies, Calm is having a positive effect on more and more people each day. And while the heart of Calm is digital, they’re growing and expanding offline with products like their best-selling Sleep Mist, their mindful puzzle collection, and collaborations like Tuft and Needle meditation pillow, to help deliver on their mission of health and happiness, the world over.

Calm is recommended by top psychologists, therapists, mental health experts, and the press:

“I’m generally wary of meditation apps because they sometimes weave in too much mystic talk for my taste. But Calm instead contains guidance like ‘Concentrate on your body’” – New York Times

“In the frenetic, crazy, digital world we live in, sometimes it’s necessary to take a step back and smell the roses” – Mashable

“Eliminating distraction…ended up helping me relax and realize that all the stuff I was stressing about wasn’t that big a deal” – Tech Republic

“Found myself similarly refreshed afterward” – TechCrunch

2. Shine: Calm Anxiety & Stress is now Headspace

Founded by two women of color on a mission to make taking care of your mental health easier, more representative, and more accessible, Shine is your space for daily self-care. Start 2023 with Shine for better mornings, brighter days, and the truest you.

Headspace Health acquired Shine on September 8, 2022. You can still use Shine to some capacity; however, it appears that eventually, it will all be switched over to Headspace Health.

Daily Meditations

A great meditation tool to create an easy morning ritual with a daily meditation process and gratitude check-ins.

Unlimited Access to 1000+ Meditations

You’ll get access to an exclusive library of thousands of meditations created by diverse experts, and personalized tools and content based on your needs.

Unlock your full mental wellness program when you become a Shine Premium member. You’ll get more support with:

Weekly Courses

Build life-long skills with weekly courses—all around different self-care themes like resilience, boundaries, rest, joy, and more.

Monthly Virtual Workshops

Join monthly virtual workshops with mental wellness experts to learn alongside a supportive community and deepen your growth.

Shine in the Press

“Most Meditation Apps Are Voiced by White People, but the Founders of ‘Shine’ Are Changing That” – PureWow

“Best Anxiety Apps If You’re Fully on the Brim of Freaking Out” – Cosmopolitan

“Best apps for parents in 2019” – TODAY Show

3. ThinkUp – Daily Affirmations

Manifest self-love and positivity through daily words of affirmations and ‘I am’ mantras. Our mindsets and thoughts affect our daily motivation, self-confidence, and happiness. Daily words of affirmations and ‘I am’ mantras are a simple and proven method of self-care for the manifestation of positive thinking and increased motivation to achieve your life goals. Practice daily affirmations through ‘I am’ mantras to self pause and manifest positivity into your life through the law of attraction.

Daily Motivation

Take control of your life with daily words of affirmations and ‘I am’ mantras for daily positive feedback and manifest positive thinking and self-confidence in your life. Select daily morning affirmations, ‘I am’ mantras, or inspirational quotes from a list curated by self-care professionals.

Positive Thinking and Self-care

Create a manifestation journal with ‘I am’ daily mantras by voice recording your own words of affirmations. Self pause, manifest positivity in your life, and increase self-confidence and positive self-talk.

Free vs. Premium

ThinkUp offers free access to hundreds of professional daily affirmations and ‘I am’ daily mantras, with the option to create a sample recording in your own voice with four daily affirmations and one default calm sounds sample.

Upgrade to Premium for better results to enhance your positive thinking and manifest more gratitude in your life.

The premium plans are:

• Monthly subscription for $2.99
• For life access with a one-time payment of $19.99

Tips to Succeed

Select at least 15 daily affirmations and ‘I am’ daily mantras

While recording your daily affirmations, mean it!

Play your daily affirmations in a loop for 10 minutes, at least once a day before going to sleep. Morning affirmation practice is recommended as well for a daily motivation boost.

Listen to the same set of daily affirmations for at least 21 days. Repetition makes all the difference in practicing manifestation.

4. #SelfLove – Confidence & Self-esteem

Wish to build confidence and have higher self-esteem? Want to learn how to become more successful and enjoy the power of inner-monologue?

Improving Self Love And Self Esteem Is Simple

Throw away your negative thoughts. Accept your positive thoughts. Learn to identify your inner conversation and respond to real-life thoughts. Train daily and improve your self-esteem and wellness.

Science-Backed

The app is shown to improve supportive thinking and reduce maladaptive beliefs in 7 published academic papers

According to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy models, negative self-talk – individuals’ ongoing interpretations of the self, others, and the world – maintain psychological difficulties such as low self-esteem, mood, and maladaptive behaviors.

How Do I Feel Self Love

The foundations of healthy self-worth and self-esteem are built upon beliefs. Our beliefs have the potential to bias and affect our ability to deal with daily situations. For example, if I believe that “everything in my life needs to be perfect”, I won’t be able to live up to these expectations and my confidence will decrease.

Beliefs And Self Talk

Beliefs and self-talk are interrelated. With daily affirmations, we learn to embrace healthier and more adaptive self-talk. We can change our beliefs and get rid of thinking patterns that negatively affect our confidence and self-esteem.

How The App Works

The app is designed to:

1. Increase your awareness of negative thoughts
2. Train you to identify and challenge negative thoughts
3. Increase your daily access to affirmations and supportive thoughts
4. Increase the automaticity of helpful thinking
5. Provide daily affirmations for confidence and self-esteem boost

Is This App Similar To Psychological Therapy?

Our app platform is not designed to be used as a therapy or treatment, however:

• It is being used by CBT therapists as a complementing tool.
• It helps in maintaining self-esteem during or after therapy.
• It is found to relieve symptoms of anxiety, worries, obsessions, and more.

Get To Know Your Thoughts

The basic task in the app is simple – you will be presented with thoughts. If the thought promotes negative self-talk – throw it away by dragging it on-screen. If the thought promotes positive or neutral thinking, accept it by dragging it towards you.

The more we train, the more automatic this process becomes.

How Much Should I Train Each Day?

You are advised to complete up to 3 levels per day, which should only take between 2-4 minutes.

5. Sanvello: Anxiety & Depression

Whether you’re feeling anxious, lonely, overwhelmed, or just burned out, Sanvello will meet you where you’re at. Think of it as your feel-better toolkit, including therapy, coaching, coping skills, meditations, and goal and mood tracking, designed by experts to help you feel better.

Best of all, your Sanvello journey is customizable to you. The app checks in with how you’re feeling so you can track your emotions and progress over time. As patterns are identified, Sanvello will provide customized tools, rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, to keep you on the path to feeling better.

Take time for yourself by downloading Sanvello today.

Free Access Through Health Plans (U.S. Only):

Over 40 million Americans have Sanvello Premium included in their health plans and Sanvello Therapy is in-network for 90 million. Check your plan instantly in the app. No insurance or outside the U.S.? No problem—many of our most popular tools and guides are free to ensure everyone can take care of their mental health, plus we have affordable self-pay subscriptions for that extra bit of support.

Self-Care:

Get started by checking in with your mood or taking one of our assessments to get your stress, anxiety, and depression scores. This establishes your baseline and helps us recommend personalized in-app activities to get you on the path to feeling better. Go on the “Braving Anxiety” Guided Journey with John Green, or “Feeling Better” with Kati Morton. Want to chart your own course? Explore our library of coping tools, thought reframing exercises, meditations, and more.

Community:

You’re not alone: The Sanvello community is millions strong, and they find each other in the Sanvello community. Get a fresh perspective on anxiety, gratitude, and dozens of other topics by anonymously participating in active discussion boards and chat groups.

Therapy:

Feel better in half the time of traditional therapy with Sanvello Therapy, which matches you with a licensed clinician—and includes a mental health coach and Premium access to self-care content at no-cost while you’re in therapy. Therapy is only available in the U.S. in the following states: AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, PA, RI, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI. Have a therapist you love already? They can use Sanvello for Clinicians to assign activities and see your progress.

Coaching:

Face new challenges with help from someone you can trust. Sanvello Coaches provide direction, support, and motivation through 1:1 messaging—judgment-free. Your coach is there to be your sounding board in achieving your goals. You also have an all-access pass to group coaching sessions—live classes that help you apply the concepts of CBT to real life—and all our self-care tools within the app. Sanvello Coaching is only available in the U.S.

Subscription Pricing & Terms:

Sanvello is free to download and use. The premium version of Sanvello allows for unlimited use of all tools and is available through many major health plans (“upgrade via insurance”) or through an auto-renewing subscription.

6. Mindvalley: Self-Improvement

Take your self-improvement learning to the next level, and find the best online courses in personal growth, skill mastery, and self-care, straight from the experts.

Powered by machine learning and cutting-edge technology, Mindvalley brings you the future of education with a variety of classes and applicable life lessons for your personal growth journey. Our programs and courses are designed to help you in your learning and achieve the fullest potential of your mind, body, and soul, whether you want help with your career, relationships, health, and so much more.

Explore personal growth areas such as Leadership, Confidence, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Health & Fitness, Relationships, Public Speaking, Mindfulness, Happiness, Meditation Spirituality, and more. Mindvalley is your one-stop center for personal development in all areas of life.

What You Can Expect from Mindvalley?

• Study highly-rated personal development courses on a variety of topics
• Personalized learning and powerful insights based on your growth goals
• Free meditations for all levels to improve your self-care
• Live events, workshops, training sessions, and talks
• Study with world-class coaches, teachers, trainers, entrepreneurs, and more
• Form real-life working relationships with like-minded people from around the world
• Easy navigation for a seamless learning experience

How You Might Transform with Mindvalley?

• Increase productivity and improve performance at home and work
• Learn to develop and live a healthier life with nutrition and fitness
• Discover your purpose and find happiness, joy and fulfillment in your career and relationships
• Reclaim life and increase your impact in this world
• Become more focused and aware of self-care and personal growth

Powered by scientific design and machine learning, Mindvalley’s revolutionary learning platform combines community and education to accelerate your growth.

Mindvalley Memberships

Unlock all the best programs (Quests™) instantly with Mindvalley Membership plan. Gain full access to their vault of acclaimed programs, series, and lessons from world-renowned experts and thought leaders. Learn from the best – Nir Eyal, Sadhguru, Keith Ferazzi, Jim Kwik, Marisa Peer, Neale Donald Walsch, Ben Greenfield, our founder Vishen Lakhiani and more; including guests such as Mark Cuban, Maye Musk, and Gary Zukav.

Master a new skill and learn from home, a coffee shop, or anywhere on Earth. Mindvalley’s online learning programs are designed to guarantee lifelong changes.

7. Blinkist – More Knowledge in Less Time

Join 20 million Blinkist users and read or listen to key insights from 5000 bestselling nonfiction books and podcasts in just a few minutes!

Listen to key takeaways from creators of award-winning podcasts:

• Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell
• Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
• The Doctor’s Kitchen with Dr. Rupy Aujla
• The Baggage Reclaim Sessions with Natalie Lue Expert

Curated collections and personalized recommendations across 27 categories like career and success, society and culture, relationships, and much more!

Download the Blinkist app for a FREE 7-day trial and get access to all of the amazing features:

✅ Listen to audio versions on the go

✅ Podcast insights produced with the actual show creators

✅ Read and highlight key ideas instantly

✅ 27 categories to explore

✅ Offline mode so you can enjoy your favorite book insights without Wi-Fi

✅ Kindle integration: send books to your reader

✅ Evernote integration: sync your highlights seamlessly

Blinkist’s rating and the number of reviews speak for themselves:

Fiona: “I LOVE Blinkist and have been using it for nearly 2 years! I gain so much practical info that I use in my job, in such a short time.”

Julia: “I’m in love with Blinkist. It saves me so much time on my self-help journey. The shortcasts are great for my daily walks.”

Jeff: “I’ve been using this app for over a year and it’s amazing. It’s part of my morning routine while I drink my morning coffee and I can finish a blink by the end of breakfast”

Final Thoughts on Self-esteem Apps

I mentioned at the beginning of this article that it takes work to improve your self-esteem. It takes time to gather up the courage to improve yourself.

But with these self-care apps, you’ll get a lot more benefit and less distraction from your smartphone than you might be getting now.

Apps help people who want to improve themselves by giving them tips and tricks on how to do things better. But, if users aren’t disciplined enough to follow the app’s instructions, then they’ll never achieve what they set out to do. App users must be serious about using self-help apps and set realistic goals.