The key ideas

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

Nathaniel Branden, 1994

Why do some people still doubt themselves after praise and wins, while others stay steady even after a failure? Nathaniel Branden shows that self-esteem can't be handed to you as a gift: it is built by six daily practices. You'll learn what it is made of, how it gets faked, and how one unfinished sentence each morning can help make it stronger.

Who it is for

For people who succeed but still never feel sure of themselves. And for anyone who wants to understand what self-respect is really made of, and how to grow it in themselves, in their children and in a team.

Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

Success that leaves you cold

Picture Timur. He has just been promoted, his colleagues are congratulating him, and that evening his friends raise their glasses to him. Then at night he lies awake, thinking it's all a mistake. Soon everyone will realise he isn't good at anything special. On the outside, everything is fine. On the inside, it's empty.

Nathaniel Branden worked with people like Timur for decades. He wrote The Psychology of Self-Esteem back in 1969 and came to be called the father of a whole movement. In 1994 he published The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, a book that gathered up what his long years of practice had taught him.

His idea is simple and uncomfortable. You can't get self-esteem from other people: no praise, no salary, no likes can create it. It grows out of how a person lives every day. Branden names six such practices and shows that each one can be trained.

You'll learn what self-esteem is made of, how the real thing differs from the fake, which six practices hold it up, and how it shows up in families, at school and at work. The fact that this book is in front of you right now already says you're willing to look at yourself honestly, and that is exactly where Branden suggests you begin.

Two supports: "I can cope" and "I deserve it"

Branden gives self-esteem a precise definition. It is the disposition to experience yourself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness. That sentence has two parts, and each one matters.

He calls the first part self-efficacy. It's the confidence that you can think, learn, choose and make decisions. Not knowing everything in the world, but trusting your own mind when you have to make sense of something new.

The second part is self-respect. It's the sense that you have a right to be happy, that you deserve love, friendship and success. You can cope brilliantly and still feel unworthy of what you get. Then success doesn't bring joy. It brings fear.

Branden finds an image for self-esteem: the immune system of consciousness. It doesn't spare you trouble, but it helps you resist it and bounce back faster after a blow. Lacking it is like lacking calcium. It doesn't kill you at once, but over the years it gets harder and harder to live at full strength.

Branden links healthy self-esteem with a whole set of qualities: realism, creativity, independence, flexibility, the ability to handle change, and a willingness to admit and correct mistakes. People like this find it easier to be kind and to cooperate. He links low self-esteem with rigidity, fear of the new and defensiveness, and with swinging between too much compliance and hostility. This isn't a diagnosis or a test. It's a picture the author saw over years of practice.

One important caveat: healthy self-esteem, for Branden, isn't about comparison. You don't need to be above others to have it. Someone who keeps measuring themselves against everyone around them is usually showing not strength, but a lack of confidence.

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About the author

Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) was a Canadian-American psychotherapist, author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1969) and some twenty books on the subject. He is called the father of the self-esteem movement, though he was deeply sceptical of its simplified versions.

All books by this author: Nathaniel Branden

Terms from the book

  • Self-esteem
  • Self-acceptance
  • Immune system
  • Self-sabotage
  • Self-efficacy: The first part of self-esteem in Branden's account: confidence in your ability to think, learn, choose and make decisions.
  • Self-respect: The second part of self-esteem in Branden's account: confidence in your right to happiness, love, friendship and success.
  • Pseudo-self-esteem: Branden's term for the appearance of confidence, used to hide fear and self-doubt.
  • Living consciously: Branden's first practice: respect for facts and a willingness to see what bears on your actions and goals, even when it is unpleasant.
  • Self-responsibility: Branden's third practice: recognising that your choices, your actions and your happiness depend first of all on you.
  • Self-assertiveness: Branden's fourth practice: honouring your wants, needs and values and being willing to express them in fitting ways. Not aggression and not a drive to dominate.
  • Living purposefully: Branden's fifth practice: setting concrete goals, working out the steps they need, and checking whether those steps bring you closer.
  • Personal integrity: Branden's sixth practice: your beliefs, words and actions matching one another.
  • Sentence completion: An exercise Branden used in his work and in the book: you take the start of a sentence and quickly write several endings without thinking them through first.
  • Knowledge economy: An economy in which the main value comes from knowledge, ideas and the ability to learn fast, not only from physical labour and raw materials.

All terms

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