5 Books You Should Read For Increasing Confidence In Boardroom, Tailored Advice For Women

If you struggle with confidence and self-esteem, you're not alone. Over the years, studies have shown that a majority of people — about 85 percent — struggle with self-confidence. Improving self-esteem can have significant long-term benefits. Gaining confidence is a difficult process, but you can seek help from experts or people with valuable life experiences to share. Self-help books have exploded in popularity over the past decade, many of which have the explicit goal of helping readers improve their self-esteem.

Books For Increasing Confidence

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field - Nathaniel Branden (1994)

This book about confidence is an oldie but goodie. In it, Nathaniel Branden — a pioneer in the self-esteem movement (and former romantic partner of Ayn Rand) — answers four questions: What is self-esteem? Why is it important? What can we do to raise our levels? And what role do others play in influencing our self-esteem? He also addresses six self-esteem cornerstones: the practices of living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposefulness and integrity. Branden outlines steps for success in each of these areas, and he cautions that the task of sustaining them falls on each individual.

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are - Brené Brown (2010)

There's a reason why one of Brené Brown's speeches ranks among the most popular TED Talks of all time. She's a research professor and bestselling author, and this book offers guidance on living wholeheartedly, something Brown equates to living your life from a place of worthiness. Through the book's 10 guideposts — with titles like "Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think" and "Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison" — Brown teaches readers to view themselves as "enough," let go of productivity as self-worth and move away from self-doubt and the need to feel constantly in control.

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun - Gretchen Rubin (2011)

Gretchen Rubin's writing and analysis put her at the forefront of research on habits, human nature and happiness, and her works have been translated into more than 30 languages. This book, which topped the New York Times bestseller list, was sparked by a simple question she asked herself on a rainy afternoon on a city bus: What do I want from life, anyway? In this book, Rubin outlines her own resolutions for the year she spent working on her own "happiness project." She focused on a different area each month, like vitality and boosting energy for January, which meant having goals like an earlier bedtime, better exercise and simply acting more energetically. Rubin's angle here isn't telling readers to do something — rather, it's to share her own experience in hopes of inspiring readers to think differently about their own happiness.

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