by dr Phil MacGraw

• What are the ten most defining moments of your life?
• What are the seven most critical choices you have made to put you on your current path?
• Who are the five most pivotal people in your world and how have they shaped you?

Identifying and working with these key elements are at the heart of Dr. Phillip C. McGraw's latest work, Self Matters, and soon they will be at the heart of your own new work: you.

In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Phil challenges you to find your "authentic self"-that person you once were before life took its toll. It is you at your greatest, most fulfilled, most real moment. It is the person you have always wanted to be, but were too distracted, busy, or scared to become. Instead, you have created a "fictional self"-taking on the identity of who you believe you are supposed be, the person people tell you you are. The incongruence between these two selves is what leads you to feel that your life is incomplete, unbalanced, and altogether more difficult than it really should be.

The good news is it no longer needs to be that way. By using the plan set forth in Self Matters, Dr. Phil helps you to demystify your self-concept and learn how to reclaim your authentic self. In evaluating your life by only the facts, you can learn to think beyond the excuses and fears that have masked the person you have always wanted to be.

Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters

by dr Phil MacGraw

1. You either get it, or you don't
2. There are no accidents
3. People do what works
4. You cannot change what you do not acknowledge
5. Life rewards action
6. There is no reality, only perception
7. Life is managed, not cured
8. We teach others how to treat us
9. There is freedom in forgiveness
10. You have to name it to claim it

Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem

by Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning

Offering proven cognitive techniques for overcoming destructive views and fears, Self-Esteem is a classic guide to challenging the inner critic. Starting with how to recognize the self-critical voice that can be so damaging and insidious, the authors suggest practical ways to realize what is happening, stop self-judgment, gain perspective, and heal past wounds.

The authors deal with the following aspects:

• The nature of self-esteem: here the basic concept of the whole book is being introduced: your thoughts determine your self-esteem
• The pathological critic: you explore your inner critic, explore the origin of this critic and get information how to catch your critic
• Disarming the critic: in order to combat your inner critic, you first have to understand its function, then talk back so to make him useless
• Accurate self-assessment: this is one of the highlights of this book. You'll learn the art of accurate self-assessment without using pejorative terms like useless, bad, or inferior
• Cognitive distortions: this chapter deals with the important concept of wrongly perceiving reality and how to combat this tendency
• Compassion: this is one of the most powerful techniques for dealing with low self-esteem. You'll learn ways to better understand, accept, and forgive yourself and others
• Handling mistakes and responding to criticisms: I greatly like the attitude of the authors towards mistakes. There are no mistakes in the world, because all the decisions you chose to make were based on your needs and assessment of the situation. A decision can only be labeled as a mistake with hindsight
• Asking for what you want: this chapter shows how to assert your right without being aggressive
• Visualization and hypnosis
• Building self-esteem in children: the last chapter shows ways how to raise children with high self-esteem by listening to them and validating their feelings. At the same time, it is important to set clear limits and be consistent.