Unlocking the Secrets of Self-Esteem: A Guide to Building Confidence and Connection One Step at a Time

by Marie Hartwell-Walker EdD

If you don’t feel good about yourself, it can be difficult to reach your goals and live a happy, meaningful life. You may have already read countless books on building self-esteem, but after a while you end up right where you started―feeling like you just aren’t good enough. So, what are the real secrets to genuine, lasting self-esteem? Most books on self-esteem tell you that you should feel good about yourself, but they don’t show you how to put self-esteem into action. In this book, psychologist Marie Hartwell-Walker offers a groundbreaking new approach to self-esteem based in mindfulness and positive psychology. This book provides practical, step-by-step strategies and skills to help you develop feelings of competency, gain resiliency, rebuild self-confidence, and feel good by engaging in positive actions. Self-confidence is more than just a way of being―it’s a way of doing! By taking steps to solve problems and overcome roadblocks by helping yourself (and others!), you will learn to practice self-confidence, rather than just think about it. If you’re ready to learn the secrets to genuine self-esteem, and put what you’ve learned into action, this book will show you how.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2015

Reviews

[Pam Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Self esteem comes from feeling good about yourself, who and what you are, by your actions being positive, ethics morality and its our way of shaping our character and our future by making powerful decision which is the basis of how others see us, how we can analyse thoughtful problems hence being the basis of each persons persona and character. This book helps those who have lost their self esteem and self confidence by providing tools for enhancing and maintain self esteem and about making the decision and making the change.

[Krazybooklady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting look at self-esteem and how someone can increase it. The author offers practical steps that someone can work on in an effort to increase their self-esteem and sample plans of putting these steps into action. Most of them aren't things you would think of as ways to increase your self-esteem. I wasn't sure I agreed with the suggestion to make mistakes on purpose, but other than that, I thought the ideas provided were useful and would help if implemented. Great little self-help book.

[Kristina Aziz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from a first reads giveaway.
First and foremost, I love workbooks. I like checking boxes and filling out forms and basically any situation that involves both a pencil and paper.

I also liked that this isn't your run-of-the-mill self help book. I learned that there are different types of low self esteem, different qualities that go into increasing your self esteem, and what to do about it.

I definitely recommend this book to those who struggle with low self esteem--even if you don't like workbooks as much as I do.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific - and I am not a great fan of self help books. This book is both educational and practical with concrete, easy to follow exercises and thoughtful case studies. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to feel better about themselves or who is interested in understanding how to try and improve their feelings about their life and their place in the world.

[Dan Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a book to help you transform—this is the book for you. Unlocking The Secrets Of Self Esteem guides you on a journey from self- assessment through an understanding of what genuine self-esteem entails. The workbook is engaging and thought-provoking as it invites looking at self-esteem through different lenses. It shows how values, physical attributes and abilities, and health habits all play a role in our sense of worth—and offers comprehensive, yet easy to follow exercises to help gain insight and promote change. The straightforward approach to challenging your current state of self-esteem is both wise and practical. Drawing from dozens of studies each activity is designed to help you improve. The section on positive psychology brings the research right up to the present moment, and is rich with examples on how to apply these findings in your life. Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker has crafted a book that inspires change through action. The case studies show real examples of how people made this process work. I would think it is impossible for someone to complete the book and exercises without being transformed.

[Tina Reynolds · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too many metaphors. People can't be gumballs, boats, squirrels all at once!