22 Best Self-Love Books to Help You Heal and Feel Confident

Let go of the pressure of perfectionism — it’s a lie, anyway — and let go of shame. Instead, build self-awareness, resilience and happiness by practicing self-compassion and vulnerability. These are the steps to what Brené Brown calls a “wholehearted life.”

This book by Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat Pray Love fame, is a guide for how to embrace your creativity and release the pressure of expecting achievement. She advises how to honor your creative impulse without measuring yourself against other people or arbitrary standards. Love your abilities and creations simply because they are yours!

Feminist Gloria Steinem tackles the intersection of self-esteem and activism in this book. It examines the origins of low self-esteem, including injustice, limiting labels, discrimination, family dysfunction and more, and how it can cause us not to understand our true worth. Rising above these difficulties, both personally and politically, will unlock a world of self-love.

It might sound harsh, but it will actually set you free. Stop caring about what others think about you, and start focusing on what brings true happiness instead of the judgment of others. Releasing the pressure of external opinion will help you love yourself for who you are.

No self-love book list would be complete without the powerhouse Glennon Doyle. This is a memoir about how one woman started living unapologetically for herself and, in so doing, showed her children and the world around her how to be authentically alive — and it's also a rallying cry to help you do the same.

RELATED: Most Commonly Banned Books in America Right Now

This guided journal from the poet and memoirist Maggie Smith comes out of her own writing practice that helped remind her to be gentle with herself, especially during hard times. As Smith puts it, “I wasn’t offering wisdom from on high; I was talking to myself at the bottom of a dark well, trying to climb up into the light, little by little, day by day.”

Activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor offers ways to understand the origins and liberate yourself from body shame. Model Tess Holliday said the book "Is essential reading for those of us who crave understanding and those who are already on the path to learning how beautiful and complex our bodies are."

RELATED: Best Self-Care Ideas for Mental and Physical Wellbeing

If the subtitle to this one doesn't make you want to read it, nothing we say is going to either. But if the brain that brought us Grey's Anatomy (among many others) can spend a year saying yes, the rest of us can definitely learn a thing or two from this recounting of what happened when she did.

This book isn't about quick fixes, empty platitudes or easy solutions. It's about setting yourself on a path toward changing — because if there's one thing that's certain in this world, it's uncertainty. It's for anyone who wants to embrace self-love in everything that it embodies.

It's so easy to get stuck in survival mode, just getting through one day, then the next, then the next, on and on until forever. This collection of lessons, reflections and exercises helps you break out of unhelpful patterns and get started on the path toward our best selves.

If you're the kind of person who's convinced you have a brain tumor every time you get a headache (guilty as charged), this book will help you dial that down and remind yourself that you're just fine as you are.

Boost your self-esteem, realize (and embrace) your worth and learn how to identify and enact goals that are uniquely yours with this insightful workbook. It's got interactive activities, actionable advice and thoughtful prompts to help lead you down the path toward self-love.

World-famous life coach Jen Sincero offers how-to tips on ending self-sabotage and designing a life that you want. If you like Sincero's style of advice, you can move on to You Are A Badass Every Day, or You Are A Badass at Making Money.

If you're new to the idea of self-love and need a road map to follow, Shannon Kaiser's 15 principles of self-love will get you started down the right path. Kaiser is an international life coach and speaker who was named one of the "top 100 women to watch in wellness" by Mind Body Green.

This interactive journal offers exercises to help you determine where you are in your self-love journey and guide you along the way. Find uplifting prompts like, "List five things that always, and immediately, bring a smile to your face." Go ahead, treat yourself to a fancy new pen for writing in it.

So often, our self-worth gets wrapped up in our romantic relationships. The writers of this book, who studied Christian mysticism and Buddhism, respectively, offer a spiritually-focused way to untangle the two.

If you're more of a facts-and-figures person, check out this book by David R. Hamilton, a scientist who worked in the pharmaceutical industry for four years before becoming interested in the biology of self-love. He delved into biochemistry and neuroscience research and developed 27 exercises meant to reprogram the brain.

Gala Darling has been teaching self-love for more than a decade, and she's put her findings into a book that comes with homework assignments to keep you accountable for your own self-love goals. Before the book, she was one of the co-founders of The Blogcademy, so she also offers insights into her path to success.

If you need your advice in more of the hard-talk, straight-truth mode, author Gary John Bishop pulls no punches when telling you how to get out of your own way. Bishop, who grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, describes his brand of self-help as more of an "urban philosophy" approach.

This book gives you one small thing to do each day — keep a master list of joys! Stop comparing yourself to others! — that, taken together, make up a 365-day plan for self-love. Each task is quick, so you have no excuse not to work on yourself.

RELATED: A Complete List of Our Good Housekeeping Book Club Picks