M.R.
Years ago a well known psychologist conducted a rather large study on women returning to college, under the 'displaced housewives' category.
She had 1/2 the group read such titled self-help books you list, and take personality tests and attend a conversation support group to plan their future careers coupled with their interests.
The second 1/2 took math class.
She tested both groups about their own perceived confidence at the beginning and at the end of the semester.
The Psychologist was convinced the results were wrong. So she retested. So she thought she wrote the questions wrong and re-did the experiment the following year and had the exact same results.
The women who took the math class, their self- esteem sky-rocketed. The women who read the books and talked, their self-esteem went down. She thought that math would be a struggle and that it would negatively affect their personal opinion of themselves.
They concluded that learning a life skill with real application was much better for a women's confidence and self-esteem, then all the self-help books combined.
Now, I'm not saying there isn't something valuable in the books. I would recommend reading through the table of contents and stick with something that resonates with your thought processes.
We read Sticky Situations here at home everynight together. It offers real life drama and difficult decisions with biblical principles to support the choices. We have lots of conversations over those stories, as some are great examples and some are corny....but we learn together.
Good Luck,
