Courses/resources to improve my self-esteem and believe in myself more?

Yes, I wish I could PM you.

I spent lots of time in front of therapists as well. What I got for it was an education in how I got to be who I am today. My recommendation is to save your money, watch School of Life videos (https://www.theschooloflife.com/) and you can figure out why you are you. The short answer is; your upbringing, because it's very hard to change that internal original programming.

The goal of therapy is 'know yourself'. So when you do eventually do 'know yourself' therapy is not going to be much help; you have achieved the goal of therapy.

(Side note: If you have had recent or unresolved trauma then 'yourself' has changed, go back to therapy to locate the new you.)

Although I do not like the term AT ALL, it sounds like you know who you are; you are a person with 'low self esteem'. I too, had "Low self esteem" as the therapists put it. What they didn't say is "Ok here's what you do with that".

Here is what I heard: "Go volunteer. Give back. Help others.".

Bullshit. That is misguided advice. You end up acting charitable and feeling used.

Or I hear "Go out, meet people."

Also, bad advice. I'm struggling and you are asking me to put social interactions on top of that too? No.

A Zen Buddhist monk once told me something that I think is applicable to you. "You can not directly control your emotions, they are too powerful, all you can control is your behavior. Control your behavior long enough your emotions will change."

That goes directly inline with the advice I'm about to give you, which is simply this:

Be competent.

Focus your energy on directing your behavior on being absolutely competent in one single area of your life and get mastery over it; absolute competence.

Once you feel like you have changed and have gained sufficient competency, move to the next thing. Build yourself up brick by brick by your actions and behavior.

It is much, much harder than just sitting talking to a therapist, but an order of magnitude more effective.

Bodybuilding. Seriously. Go to the gym and lift heavy. Lift daily. Spend 1.30-2 hours daily lifting weights. Start with a trainer if you have never done any competitive sports before. Fix your diet and eat a lot of protein.

I promise you that you will not recognize yourself in 6 months to a year. Both physically and psychologically.

IMHO a lot of issues we face in our times are because of the lack of exercise.

This is going to sound like circular reasoning, but bear with me:

In order to raise self esteem, one must do esteemable things.

Volunteer, be kind, let people in in traffic, work out, do these things consciously. You have to spend energy every day. Choose to spend it in positive ways.

Note: the results are not instantaneous. Nor are they overpowering. It's subtle, and you often only notice after things have been better for a while. Sometimes, others in your life notice for you.

Try to stick with it for 90 days. Worst case scenario, you made the world a little bit better for three months. Hard to lose.

Changing your perspective can be important here, and optimism can be useful to nurture and uphold. Martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist researching such topics, and his book Learned Optimism [1] is illuminating. My father introduced me to this book at point in my life where I was questioning my own abilities and my own future. It helped me breakdown negative thought patterns.

I've also recently learned that Coursera has a Foundations of Positive Psychology Specialization [2] put on by UPenn (where Seligman is a professor) -- it includes a course on Positive Psychology taught by Selgiman.

[1.] Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life - https://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/...

[2.] Coursera Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/positivepsychology#...

As a child of the 90's, I recall the self-esteem movement. All kids get a ribbon. All kids participate. Tell all kids how good they are. I think the movement missed the boat. The key word is "self" -- it doesn't come from others (though others might help you see it). Kids knew they sucked at a sport; the ribbon didn't really do much.

To gain self esteem, you must accomplish things. The good news? You get to pick the things. The hard part might be seeing what you've accomplished.

Lift weights and track progress. It is great to see the first time you lift 100, 200, and/or 300 pounds. Grow a garden. Raise a plant. Train a dog. Build a website. Create something tangible. Create something intangible. Finish a book. Have a fun conversation with someone. Help someone. Volunteer. There are so many ways to impact your life or the lives of those around you. Take time to notice the positive impact your actions have on yourself and others. And know that you don't have to be perfect.

Hi! Tell us a bit more about yourself, I bet there's loads of stuff that you already _should_ feel great about but might be struggling to see. Given that you were brave enough to post this under your real username I took the liberty of browsing some of your comments and I don't know if this helps at all, but you've got lots of things to be proud of. You're smart and well educated, you're paid well in an interesting sounding job. You also have by far the most interesting side hustle of anyone I've come across on here. On top of that you have a nice way of interacting with people, you're generous with praise, inquisitive, even handed and empathic. Kudos!

But, given all that and where you find yourself emotionally, I wonder if you've perhaps made a bunch of choices you're not happy with, and now you're a bit burnt out. Might I ask, what options do you have in your life right now? How locked in do you feel to your current path?

Insecurity comes from you comparing yourself to others, which, in reality, is silly once you've experienced/seen enough. Not to say it's easy to get past, but there are ways to sort of clear that up. I mainly use sorts of meditation and read quite a bit on religion, philosophy, and psychology.

I suffered from major depression most of my life until last summer when, after trying to work out what was going on in my head, was able to essentially remove what I thought I was going to live with the rest of my life. So it's possible.

My advice to you, and anyone dealing with mental/emotional health issues, is to analyze yourself. Ask yourself questions about yourself and the environment around you. Follow your own intuition and curiosity, if you really want to get better you will find your own way to do it; you just have to put in the effort to do and look.

You can get better, but only you can do it for yourself.

As someone who is also suffering from low self-esteem issues for long time please see a therapist (not CBT therapy, I'd argue a lot of self-therapy books philosophically are some variations of CBT techniques).

My self-esteem issues are the products of childhood abuse and trauma. I was in denial about my trauma, but therapy helped me accept the reality and work on treating the root cause, not the the symptomps. Your self-esteem issues might not root from abuse. But it's a good idea to get help from a professional. Otherwise you might be just treating the symptomps, not the disease itself.

I’m currently reading Feeling Good (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0380810336). It was recommended by someone here on HN. I’m half way through and I’d dare to say it’s already changing my life for the better.

I'm currently in week 4 of the most popular course in Yale [0], but was made available online on Coursera[1].

I think for the most part I've learnt I've learnt that much of what we think about happiness is consistently shown not to work. And that many of our expectations of what we think will make us happy, simply won't. If we want genuine happiness, it takes an honest self-assessment of what we're doing, what's stopping us from being happy and what would be the best way to map the parts of our life we can control to actually make us happy.

Anyway, the course seems well respected and highly recommended [2]. But I hope you're doing ok, and whatever you choose to do next, you find what you're looking for. Best of luck.

[0] https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/yale-let-anyone-take-its-mos...

[1] https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19903628

There is some good advice in the thread. I will add one point, apply yourself more. Without engaging in a task and completing it, you won't feel confident about it. You need engagement regularly to stimulate your worth. You might also need others to acknowledge it which can be hard. I know I personally stopped believing any praise or acknowledgement I was given irl. I didn't compare myself to others per se but I was extremely stuck on the idea that every attempt of mine should produce better results than the previous. People didn't notice my critical flaws then how can they be good at praise.

As for any specific thing you could try, find something that is interesting to you. Find a small internet community about it and engage. Learn from them and tell them what you know. Build trust, then try to move it to offline meetup or places. Someone you trust and idolize telling you how valuable you are as a person is a great booster.

If you are happy with your current medications, try Vitamin D if you are in a cloudy area or do not get out often.

If you're good on those things, try increasing your exercise level. Walk/run/sprint or lifting. You can do body weight exercise at home if you do not feel comfortable in a gym just yet.

If you are happy with your exercise level, pick up a new hobby, tech or otherwise.

I speak from personal experience and this may help or it may not. The one book that boosted my self confidence and changed my life is 12 steps and 12 traditions: https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Steps-Traditions-Alcoholics/dp...

I read the book and reread it and work the 12 steps into my daily life. The single best thing it did for me is that it made me a more honest person, to others and myself. I no longer try to push myself to make deadlines. When things starts sucking at work, I say it honestly. When I wronged someone, I am quick to apologize. I no longer have the need to fulfill people's expectations and since I have nothing to hide, I look into people's eyes during conversations and I genuinely connect with people better.

I was introduced to this book during AA meetings (which I started going to voluntarily to get the courage to say no to alcohol). The people who go to AA meetings regularly because they choose to, are amazing people. Maybe going there regularly will help you boost your self esteem, as it did mine.

FYI, most people have a hard time with step 2 and 3. If you are like me and don't believe in God, it helps to redefine God. God could be nature, fate, an apple, or whatever makes sense to you that seems like a recurring source of comfort for you. For me, God is the innate goodness in people that makes them want to do right by others.

Good luck.

Thinking of talking to a therapist, I'm curious to hear what others have on this interpretation (which I openly acknowledge as "could be wrong" and I've never seen a therapist aside from once in couples counseling where they asked if I was ever diagnosed with aspergers): you grow the feelings you feed.

What I mean is: when you dwell on things and focus on them in therapy, are you feeding negative emotions or traits and growing them? Could seeing a therapist make it worse?

Have you noticed moments or sequences when you have not had low self-esteem? For those times, what has been different? What sorts of situations increase your self-esteem?

Often when someone says they want more self-esteem, they want to stop feeling bad. You have an ugly idea of who you are and think that replacing it with a not-ugly version would be good. People try to solve the problem by building themselves up, in practical ways in reality or in their minds. Then they chase a bunch of external things in order to keep that esteem up when it seems to work for a while.

If you get into a healthy space, though, you realize you will always feel a little bad/good about circumstances, but your _core_ sense of "feeling good" doesn't need to be connected to that stuff. It's actually not. Mostly, you can shed the major part of depression, anxiety, and worrying about your "self" and whether it is esteemed, just by changing how you breath, how your spine is positioned, and a few other things that can be done pretty quickly. Quickly, but lots of practice makes it a lot better.

I recommend taking the Inner Engineering program at ishafoundation.org. It is basically meditation and "yoga", but there is not really the "exercise" thing that people do in the US. I'm not into New Age things, or trying to have "beliefs", and certainly not interested in following gurus or donating money to anyone. I spent 4 days at their ashram and got a set of skills over a year ago that makes everything in life easier. Nobody ever tried to sell me anything afterward. I know 4 other people closely who have done it, and kept with it for years afterward, and met a few dozen others from the class that I keep up with. I know they have had classes in the Bay Area in the last year too, if India is a bit far away. I walked out of the first day of class there "in the zone" and spent a ton of time there afterward. It's really great.

One thing I would recommend that you set obtainable goals, and do them. There is a tremendous amount of power in the finishing things that you intend to do.

In the past I've started with big projects and struggled with my own confidence because I haven't finished them. Making small goals and accomplishing them really gives me an positive sense of self, and ability.

Do esteemable acts on a regular basis. Start with simple things like holding the door for others or picking up what they drop. Let that evolve into an attitude of service; what can I bring to this situation that is actually helpful? Don’t seek recognition of any kind for such acts, the reward for doing the right thing is doing the right thing.

I think you may find Albert Ellis's work valuable (he founded the Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy process, a cousin of CBT). He discusses self-esteem a lot in his work, particularly around the risks of both low self-esteem and high self-esteem.

You may also find meditation helpful--particularly some kind of light noting practice (perhaps not Mahasi-style noting, but Shinzen Young's Unified Mindfulness/See Hear Feel technique). Deconstructing emotions and thoughts into their constituent parts not only will allow you to see your patterns more clearly, but breaking a complex emotion down also makes it more manageable to deal with.

As with most habits, you'll get most out of what you're willing to do not only during therapy sessions or formal meditation sits, but during every day life.

An excellent therapist is always a good thing to identify, but excersize can definitely also have a massive impact on self esteem, energy levels, and mood in general.

I found that strength training has radically changed my life, and I've certainly plumbed the depths of profound depression and anxiety in my own life. So far, nothing has come close to helping me as much as strength training. Working out regularly gives me a way to care for myself, and I can walk around knowing that I'm doing work that will have a lasting benefit for all aspects of my life. It's a lot less about looking perfect or weighing some ideal amount and more about caring for myself, and celebrating those small victories in the gym as evidence of personal resilience and growth.

Excersize may not be the magic bullet for your situation, but the same experience of caring for yourself might come from other experiences, like volunteer work, studying a new skill or hobby, etc.

By the way, I've certainly let mediocre therapy go too long. Nothing wrong with exploring other therapists, it's a deeply personal search, and needs also change over time. Trust your instincts on whether you are receiving the right care for you. The worst that can happen is that you try someone else and realize you prefer your former therapist.

You are worth it! Best of luck.

Exercise is an excellent way to build outer confidence and self-esteem. On the inner level, I would recommend practicing compassion meditation, especially self-compassion. Many of us have a belief that there is something wrong with us, that we are deficient. If you can face this feeling in a gentle and self-compassionate way, you can bring the emotion to the surface and release it. Over time it subsides. This will also lead you to feel compassion for others.

You could start with something like this:

https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-the-rain-of-self-compas...

I made this account only to answer you, since I have few insights that might help you.

Following noncoml's advice on bodybuilding, there is a truth in that direction: you need a challenges and victories to get out of your state.

Most enlightening reads on that subject are:

David Goggins - Can't hurt me Jocko Willink - Discipline equals freedom field manual

The center point of your problem lies in a fact that you are measuring your self in comparison to others, while the problem is within you - therefore, you need to challenge yourself in many ways and overcome those challenges in order to set yourself straight.

Warning - this is a journey not a shortcut.

I had always quite good self esteem and confidence (this originates mosty from encouragement and recogonition from parents) but I sometimes suffer through periods where I lose it a little bit and maybe my observations can help you.

You didn't say on what kind issue you have exactly, so I can give you generall advice.

IMO this might help you(if man): * test testosterone level * start lifting (this feels like cheeting when it comes to confidence) * care about yourself * take pride of your work, values, decisions, commitment * get more social * say no, don't conform to others expectations, have FU money

Have you considered meditating on a daily basis? There’s also mindfulness Cognitive Behavorial Therapy, which sounds intriguing. In general, anecdote of 1, but I find that frequent, consistent meditation can have a very positive effect. Mindfulness meditation can be a good starting point, but recently I’ve found a lot of value in “emptiness” and compassion focused meditation. The book, “A Profound Mind”, by the Dalai Lama was really good (for me). Eastern philosophy has quite a lot to say about “self”, which might be helpful in your case.

A good next step might be interacting with real people to get used to being supported.

Some comments say volunteering. I disagree. Volunteering doesn't force you to interact with people. It might not work for you.

Toastmasters, on the other hand, forces you to speak to others. Toastmasters explicitly trains members to be supportive and forgiving and to approach you to interact. Toastmasters is like a newbie environment that lets you build your confident. I'd recommend you give it a try.

Also, an evening club is generally more relaxing than a day club. So, start with that.

I also had the same issue and hitting the gym helped me a lot. Dont worry about any other variables in the beginning. Just keep showing up. I read a beautiful answer which sheds some light on the same thing. https://qr.ae/TUhWqE Start small and keep building on it. Make compound interest work for you. All the best :)

I do not think placing self-esteem as subordinate to your finite mind, body, and ego is wise. For me, universalizing human experience and studying and concentrating on the Atman has been useful. Keep a positive attitude by remembering we’re all god-in-the-making and this self continues to be projected and manifested and always remember self-surrender.

Checkout this YouTube channel called Social Animal, it’s basically about that through interacting with people, very interesting and unique perspective: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsMcTtQH_YWD-qBgy3vY9JQ

Perhaps related, but I'd be interested in resources that can help me appreciate/love myself more, since I've recently found out that subconscious self-hatred could very well be at the root of a lot of problems I've been dealing with, including anxiety. Many thanks in advance for any pointers.

Everybody suffers from low self-esteem at some or the other point of life. Recognize what skills you think you lack and work on them and eventually you'll pick other skills along the way. To start off with this, you've got to be optimistic even in the worst of situations.

This worked wonders for me!

I started to follow Tibetan Buddhist teaching, where high and low self-esteem are treated in the same way, as a manifestation of pride, which is considered one of the 5 main emotions. Once you go deeper, your low self-esteem is gone. There are very practical methods for that.

There’s a book called 10 days to self esteem by dr David burns. Try that or CBT or his team based therapy model. If you are a developer or coder, work through hacker rank problem sets too. Also expand your social network and see friends and family. Make it a routine.

The book “6 Pillars of Self Esteem” is excellent. It’s research based and actionable.

Life lessons from clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQZmtHjTgPB-NMBr1QmN0...

Edit: Why the downvotes? His lessons surrounding common issues in life that he's seen in therapy sessions are authentic and incredibly helpful.

I suppose that you first need to identify what's causing your self-esteem issues. I've had a problem with always looking at "the big picture," and consequently, seeing how little of a difference I ultimately make.

I'd recommend reading The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russel [1]. Some great excerpts:

> When I was a boy I knew a man bursting with happiness whose business was digging wells. He was of enormous height and of incredible muscles; he could neither read nor write, and when in the year 1885 he got a vote for Parliament, he learnt for the first time that such an institution existed. His happiness did not depend upon intellectual sources; it was not based upon belief in natural law, or the perfectibility of the species, or the public ownership of public utilities, or the ultimate triumph of the Seventh Day Adventists, or any of the other creeds which intellectuals consider necessary to their enjoyment of life. It was based upon physical vigor, a sufficiency of work, and the overcoming of not insuperable obstacles in the shape of rock. The happiness of my gardener is of the same species; he wages a perennial war against rabbits, of which he speaks exactly as Scotland Yard speaks of Bolsheviks. […]

> But, you will say, these simple delights are not open to superior people like ourselves. What joy can we experience in waging war on such puny creatures as rabbits? The argument, to my mind, is a poor one. A rabbit is very much larger than a yellow fever bacillus, and yet a superior person can find happiness in making war upon the latter. Pleasures exactly similar to those of my gardener so far as their emotional content is concerned are open to the most highly educated people. […]

> To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: “Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.”

Now, you probably don't want to go that far. But the point is: your life doesn't have to be grand or world-changing in order for you to be happy. You probably won't end up in the history books, but there's still a lot of cool things you can do before you die. You probably won't be the next Charlotte Brontë, but maybe you can write one book. You probably won't be the next Florence Nightingale, but maybe you can donate to the Against Malaria Foundation and save a dozen lives.

[1]: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222834

I loved this MOOC, which covers a lot of the research on happiness:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness

This is something i can relate to in a big way. For me, the two things that helped are Bodybuilding and Boxing. While both have been mentioned here already, i honestly can't overstate how good both of them are in building up your self esteem and belief in yourself.

Bodybuilding is amazing because you literally get to watch this visible transformation happening in front of your eyes. You see the weight climb, you feel parts of your body grow and strengthen, you feel better and better each day. It's an amazing thing.

Boxing too works wonders because it really teaches you to rely on yourself and to think on the fly. You learn to think fast, adapt, rely on your training and to always be looking for an opening. It works wonders on your mental state and physical fitness (just be careful which gym's you go to).

TL;DR, do both, or any of the number of awesome choices people have recommended like BJJ, or any other competitive sport. You'll notice the change and thank yourself for it.

Edit: sorry for the long comment, but my username is partially a result (the metta part) for going through a period of having low self-esteem.

Tal-Ben Shahar Positive Psychology [1], it's a Harvard course and self-esteem is one of the lectures. It's old, but the big ideas that changed my life are there.

So based on that course you'll want to learn about meditation. I've got the right book for you from a Google engineer who made sure most of it was evidence-based [2].

Obviously you'll also realize because of the course you want to pickup aerobic exercise.

David Burns is my favorite psychologist (I read Intimate Connections from him, his claim to fame is Feeling Good). He has an answer to your question, which is Ten Days to Self Esteem [3]. Though, when I read the reviews you might just want to get one of his other books. I'm a fan of Intimate Connections, other people are fan of Feeling Good. You'll definitely learn a lot about cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT changed my life.

And what the heck, not sure if this counts towards your question, but it's at least related to it and good for the soul. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl [4]. What's interesting about his book regarding self-esteem is that he basically invents half the field of positive psychology 50 to 60 years before it even exists. Also, it's just mandatory reading for any human being IMO, but that's again IMO.

Then, some personal advice that I've seen to work.

You need to be brutally rational and empirical about self-esteem. I know one programmer friend and I noticed that he wasn't able to do that. What I noticed was the following: HE DIDN'T TEST HIS ASSUMPTIONS! Yes, that warrants a caps because I told this to him every single time and it didn't get through to him. So, do find your assumptions and do some experiments.

Some experiments I have done in the past:

1. People are mean. Experiment: walk up to 10 people and say hi and see what happens. Result: people say hi back, and the pressure of not saying anything sometimes caused a conversation to happen which was fairly pleasant. In other cases it was awkward. In conclusion: people were never mean.

2. Stating to a woman that you want to kiss her doesn't work. Instead you have to make the move. Experiment: when I feel I have a bond with a woman [a] and I want to kiss her, then state it politely and leave it at that, repeat every 2 hours (if you still feel that way and have been fully platonic otherwise). Results: to my surprise, every woman kissed me. Heck, some just kissed me out of curiosity despite feeling no attraction to me. Weirder still, one of those curious kisses was one of the best kisses we both had in our lives. Note: I didn't ask any random woman on the street to kiss me. If the constraints of [a] weren't satisfied, I'd feel too unsafe to kiss her, and in almost all cases wouldn't even want to kiss her.

[a] Minimally 3 hours of intense talking about life, ourselves, our families, hopes, ambitions, the works, preferably 6 hours. This excludes having fun. Without getting a feel about someone and without feeling a strong connection, kissing feels a bit too dangerous for me to do. Since I had low self-esteem I wanted to feel safe.

3. I am not attractive. Experiment: go up to 30 people for which you want to be attractive to and give them a survey. Ask them at least: from a scale of 1 to 10 how attractive you are, and from a scale of 1 to 10 how attractive you could potentially be and what you'd need to change and why it would make you more attractive. While I didn't do this experiment, I have had enough feedback about my attractiveness. Long story short: I think I'm not that good looking (I have a scar on my face since birth). But most people that I want to be attractive to find me actually quite attractive. I've also been called ugly enough times, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think a strong moderating variable is whether you simply click with the other person in that moment.

What I've learned by experimenting: my assumptions and ideas about social interactions and dynamics are terrible. Sometimes I was right, most of the time I was quite to horribly wrong.

Other advice I want to give:

(1)

Self-esteem / confidence is knowing about understanding what you are afraid of and then understanding what success looks like, a successful failure case looks like and a horrifying failure case looks like. When I learned to ski this was crystal clear.

Successful case: I am able to turn, break and go straight.

Successful failure case: I am about to ski of a cliff, but I am capable of falling right now to break. I know that by falling it won't really hurt that much and I won't injure myself.

Horrifying failure case: (I had this one as a kid) you ski towards the ski lift and while at full speed you realize that you're going to slam into the ski lift row and you can't break (and can't realize that falling was a good option). Helloooo hospital, how are you? :D

Pick the topic and map out these 3 cases and try to find ways to make horrifying failure cases into successful failure cases. In the skiing example: if I just fell down before slamming into the ski lift row, I would not have gone to the hospital. Back then I didn't know that falling was relatively painless.

(2)

My self-esteem issue had to do with romantic relationships. What I learned was that if I was capable of giving me self love and didn't need a relationship, but see a relationship as the cherry on top, then life is awesome! And it was. One attitude that really helped with that was: treating life as playful and as positively as possible. I got all my relationships where I realized that I'd like one, but I didn't need one and I didn't crave for it. I learned how to kill the craving (thanks meditation).

So yea, hope this helps.

[1] I found a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8qpn6kNfPc&list=PLF6A3AC0B7...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12921211-search-inside-y...

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19295.Ten_Days_to_Self_E...

[4] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Me...

Hi,

I think we are wired to create social stories about things that happen. Find new ways of being social, feeling connection, getting praise. To overrule your current mindset.

Also, have you checked out EMDR? Best of luck!

Self-esteem can come from empowerment. Becoming good at something is empowering.

So instead of self-help books I would recommend books/videos on a hobby you want to become better at.

My mom recommended this: https://youtu.be/6LEJWeVmOXw Bk Shivani. It helped me.

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. There’s an 8 week mindfulness program - free! - that you can do at home and will help with your feelings.

Generally speaking: I really liked “The obstacle is the way”.

But I have a question: is there any particular part of your life you notice especially low self-esteem?

I think, from direct personal experience, you might get the best results from really focusing on making yourself better, and this will to some extent make you feel better.

Develop skills to a new level, really figure out if you live according to an ethical system you believe in, keep seeing how much you can accomplish in the direction of goals YOU find meaningful.

Again from personal experience you could try reading a bunch of Jordan Peterson, and maybe try his self authoring course.

His insight in to these topics has been very helpful to me.

I also have gotten a metric ton of great results from exercise. Either lifting weights and/or a skill based exercise (like martial arts or whatever) in these domains you get the mental health benefits of exercise, and the psychological benefits of measurable increase in capacity over time.

I also have gotten amazing results from meditating, specifically the Waking Up app by Sam Harris, which has helped me see my thoughts a little more dispassionately, so I can start to see how they affect me.

I have gotten good insight from the work of Scott Adams, I think it was “how to fail at almost everything and still win big” which presents his moist robot framing for how to help yourself feel differently.

Also 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by I think Steven Covey.

Also How to Win Friends and Influence People which is an old and amazing book that reframe interpersonal interaction, which influenced my self esteem dramatically.

Feel free to message me directly if you want more tailored opinions to your situation.

Why not go with low self esteem? Not trusting yourself should boost your motivation to be right. Depending on your goals in life, that could be useful.

Have you checked if it's you and not your environment? Maybe you can improve your life by working with and spending time with people who don't put you down?

I also wish I could DM you - get in touch if you would like to chat about it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-another-name...

I would recommend the following:

https://store.tonyrobbins.com/products/personal-power

General advice:

See more different therapists until you find one that works well for you. A good therapist in 2020 should be able to fix you up in a few sessions if they're right for you. Don't be afraid to explore weird things, who cares if it doesn't make sense if it works for you? "soul retrieval", "past life regression", etc...

- - - -

I can't give you specific advice over the Internet, but here's my personal recommendation based on my own experience: Neurolinguistic Programming.

Unfortunately, it's panned as pseudo-scientific, and many of its promoters and practitioners don't do much to help with that. However, from my POV, based on my understanding and experience, it's the only really rigorous psychological science.

For example, they developed early on an algorithm called "Five-minute Phobia Cure" (because it takes about five minutes and it cures phobias.)

I personally was cured of clinical depression in a single session of hypnosis with one of the founders of NLP. He has produced a book for the mass market: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3803577-get-the-life-you...

- - - -

What ever "low self-esteem" is, it has specific physical patterns: feelings in certain parts of your body that correspond to e.g. tensions in muscles and fascia. You can "get at" your "low self-esteem" directly and physically (without interpretation of it's "meaning" or "origin story" or any of that) by various means of e.g. massage, relaxation, Rolfing, Feldenkrais, Reiki, etc...

Remove the physical basis for the subjective feelings and you "cure" your "low self-esteem".

In the limit we have what W. Reich called "orgiastic potency", the natural and healthy ability of the body to let orgasm flow throughout the whole body, unimpeded by tensions and "blockages" ("character armor"). Reich claimed that in a person who has full "orgiastic potency, neurosis is impossible to maintain."

Feldenkrais also points out that, when the soma (body) has become fully integrated (proprioceptive is accurate, all unnecessary tension has been relaxed) enlightenment occurs (he doesn't make a big deal out if it.)

- - - -

(Honestly, I feel like a time-traveler from the future in re: therapy and such. Like McCoy in the save-the-whales Star Trek movie... "Dr. gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!")

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, some of it may apply to you and some of it may not. One thing to keep in mind though: many accomplished, good-hearted, and wonderful people have low self-esteem. Similarly, many horrible sociopaths have high self-esteem. Self-esteem really says nothing about your value as a human. Not to minimize your pain, but maybe that perspective can help you find a path to feeling better.

Ayahuasca worked for me

There are some good videos on YouTube- charisma on demand, Vanessa van Edwards, school of life, Jordan Peterson

IMO, it can be difficult to overcome this all by yourself. Having someone in your life who is willing to help goes a long way

Stoicism.

I literally watched Jordan Peterson say self esteem doesn't exist.

I don't want to rain on the parade of everyone here recommending you to train and lift weights, but I want to give just another piece of anecdata as someone who has very low self-esteem.

It hasn't done it for me. I enjoy the benefits of being stronger and like training and do it regularly now, but it actually hasn't made that much of an impact on my actual self-esteem and how I choose to see things or how I live. Am I just not ripped enough yet or are there still other issues (finances for example) that I need to cover? My post is just to say that physical training isn't a silver bullet, so it's good to take some more time to think deeply about what is causing your low self-esteem. But hey, it's better to have low self-esteem and huge muscles than low self-esteem with no muscles I guess. :)