Best Books to Improve Self-Esteem | Bukuru's Honest Guide

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Books to Improve Self-Esteem

Understanding Low Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is about how worthy and competent you think you are, but it's often fueled by how others treat you.

If you're struggling with low self-esteem, your first challenge is to identify your particular primary condition:

External locus of self-worth: You are authentic but perceive disapproval and therefore consider yourself of low worth. No change in behavior is required, only in your perception and mental frame.
Inauthenticity: You experienced disapproval when you were authentic which was so uncomfortable that you trained yourself to behave in ways that did find approval, so authentic behavior is challenging now because that personality hasn't had a chance to mature and every time you receive feedback, you tend to jump back into the old role.
Lack of self-knowledge: You met disapproval when you were inauthentic but couldn’t face it and resorted to more inauthentic behavior and ignorance as a coping mechanism. At the same time, you developed a low self-image from your subconscious knowing of this inauthenticity. You now need to own it and become authentic again, but never developed the ability to do either. Nor are you aware of what’s actually authentic behavior for you.
Fragile high self-esteem: You have developed a confident (unpleasant) persona that makes you feel superior as a coping strategy for a feeling of low self-worth. Deep down you still feel low about yourself but when you try to stop the behavior that makes you feel superior, your low self-worth only worsens. You must first define what’s authentic and learn to derive self-worth from authenticity alone. You may also need to own your old behavior by being honest about it.

How to Diagnose Your Self-Esteem Patterns?

Self-diagnosis is tricky because there is a short-term emotional benefit to diagnosing yourself incorrectly.

A false diagnosis would dig you deeper into the hole you’re trying to get out of as the solutions to the different self-esteem issues are often at odds with each other.

However, lack of self-esteem always seems to be related to a limited ability to absorb discomfort. Developing this can be a good first step as it also increases your ability to be realistic about your problem.

While reframing is almost always part of the solution, there’s also almost always an element of changing your behavioral patterns – breaking through the (self-made) barrier and falsifying your old beliefs.

As with resolving trauma, a sense of safety can be a helpful element. But deriving this from other people (interdependent) carries the risk of becoming dependent on them. Safety can already come from recognizing your own bravery (independent) when going at this without others to provide circumstantial confidence.

A classic strategy for overcoming low self-esteem is by earning external validation through appearance, achievement or approval. This approach is deemed to fail.

Therapy types commonly used for creating shifts from external to internal validation are CBT, REBT and ACT.

Types of Books to Improve Self-Esteem

Here you find a list of archetypal books about improving self-esteem from which we captured the essence in a short summary. The books are listed in a random order. We don't earn any commission on your selection.

"Set Boundaries, Find Peace"

In this guide, Nedra Glover Tawwab offers practical insights on setting boundaries to foster self-respect, reclaiming personal space, and finding inner peace. The advice is to write down where you avoid setting boundaries, what the consequence is and why you do it. Then, you define the boundaries you want to install and think of responses you might need to achieve this. You can even practice role playing with a friend. Lastly, it's important to reflect on your progress.

"The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem"

Nathaniel Branden describes self-esteem as a set of foundational pillars. In order to improve your self-esteem, he provides practical exercises for each pillar. E.g. sentence completion exercises (ask your favorite AI for examples), looking in the mirror and verbally accepting yourself and your feelings, saying out loud what you're responsible for, breaking goals down into small pieces and making your values explicit.

"Daring Greatly"

Brené Brown explores the importance of vulnerability and how embracing it can lead to greater resilience and a positive sense of self. She suggests writing down in what ways you avoid being vulnerable, why you do that, to share your shame stories with others and to do one small thing each day that you feel uncomfortable doing but would make you more honest (with yourself).

"The Courage to be Disliked"

The Japanese Ichiro Kishimi argues that self-esteem isn't something to build, but a freedom from the need to prove yourself. His advice is to make explicit who's judgement you fear and to explicitly write down statements that you don't need the approval of "x". You should live up to your own standards for making efforts to create value, even if you fail. Also, the advice is to replace better/worse comparisons with equal/different. Making it explicit is the mechanism by which you instigate change.

"The Miracle of Mindfulness"

This seminal work on mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh teaches how to observe thoughts – including those about not being good enough – without identifying with them. Unlike Western self-help (e.g., Branden’s "6 pillars"), this isn’t about building self-esteem but about remembering that your worth was never lost. Meditation, breath awareness and mindfully engaging in any kind of activity help to live in the present moment, where there is no worry. Even when thoughts arise, they are no longer captivating. This book suggests you transcend the game rather than try to win it.

Bukuru's Zero-Books Approach

Our suggestion is to start developing your discomfort tolerance level. This often has the effect of making you more aware of what's authentic and it breeds courage to act upon it. Then, seeing yourself being authentic, creates a feeling of integrity and self-worth. You can read here how to do it.

About Bukuru

The core philosophy of Bukuru is that each person should test their own beliefs. The project started as a quest to categorize self-development books in such a way that it would become easier to find books that match your beliefs. However, along the way we concluded that the essence of most books can be captured in a few sentences – if the idea is original at all. Instead of helping people buy books, we now help people not buying books.