Selfworth

A 3-minute daily practice for self-worth · iPhone

You know it’s not true.
You still feel it.

Self-worth doesn’t change by arguing with the feeling. It changes when the evidence stacks up: real things you actually did, in your own words. Three honest minutes a day.

The daily practice is free, forever. Founding members also lock the optional Plus price, and nothing is charged now.

No affirmations No streaks to break Nothing leaves your phone Free forever, no trial

Curious where you stand? Take the free 2-minute self-esteem test →

If any of this sounds familiar

  • You’re kinder to everyone else than you are to yourself.
  • You hit the goal, and the bar just moves again.
  • You can list your wins and still feel like a fraud.
  • You’ve tried “thinking positive,” and it felt like lying.
  • You’ve started a journal three times and quit by day four.

None of that means something is wrong with you. It means you’ve been handed the wrong tools. Repeating things you don’t believe, and streaks that punish you for a hard day, don’t work for this, and they can quietly make it worse.

The difference

Not affirmations.
Evidence.

Nothing here asks you to repeat a sentence you don’t believe. Telling yourself “I am enough” when you don’t feel it tends to backfire. Research has found that positive self-statements can actually lower mood for the people who need them most. So Selfworth does the opposite. You build a case for yourself out of things that actually happened, in your own words. On the days the feeling lies, there’s a record that argues back.

How the daily practice works

Five small steps. About three minutes.

1

Check in

“How do you feel about yourself, right now?” One tap, one to seven. Charted gently over time, noticed, never scored against you.

2

Log one real thing

A short, concrete prompt. “What’s one thing you did today that took effort, even if no one noticed?” You write one true sentence. That’s it.

3

Name the quality it shows

Kind. Capable. Resilient. The good stuff finally gets written down, gets to count, and goes into an evidence book that grows.

4

Answer your inner critic

Catch what it actually said, word for word. Then answer it the way you’d answer a friend who said it about themselves: fairly, in writing, when it shows up.

5

A fair word to end on

A grounded line of self-compassion. No badge, no points, no streak, just the quiet fact that you showed up.

Three minutes. Most days. Miss a few, and your book is exactly where you left it.

Want to try one day on paper first? Open the one-page evidence log →

Or measure where you are now with the 2-minute self-esteem test →

Why it’s different

The things it refuses to do are the point.

No affirmations

Built on real events in your own words, never sentences you don’t believe. That’s exactly why it can move the feeling, not just a to-do list.

No streaks to break

A gentle weekly rhythm: five of seven days is a full week. Rough days route to a compassion break that still counts. Nothing zeroes out.

Stays on your phone

No account. No analytics. No ads. Ever. The most honest thing you write all week is read by no one but you.

Honest about the science

We show you the research the method comes from, and where three minutes a day is an adaptation, not the full program. We’ll always tell you.

Free, for real

The whole daily practice, and every bit of rough-day support, is free forever. Not a trial. Depth programs are optional, never the basics.

Built by one person

Made by someone who needed it too, answerable to you, not to investors.

The honest version

Grounded in the method research supports most, and honest about the rest.

Selfworth is built on cognitive-behavioral work for self-esteem: a positive log of real evidence, plus answering your inner critic, closed with a little self-compassion. It draws on the methods reviews have found among the most promising for self-esteem.

The studies behind it tested multi-week programs, usually with a therapist’s support. This is a short, self-guided adaptation of the same building blocks. We can point you to the research the method rests on. We can’t claim those exact results for a few minutes on a phone, and we won’t. The in-app “Science” screen keeps the full citations and the fine print, side by side.

Grounded in the work of Melanie Fennell and the cognitive-behavioral self-esteem literature.

Private by design

The most honest thing you’ll write all week. It never leaves your phone.

No login. No cloud account. No analytics, no ad trackers, nothing sold, by design, not as a setting you have to find. With backup off, your journal never leaves your phone at all. Optional iCloud backup goes only to your own private Apple iCloud. There’s no Selfworth server and no account, so your journal is never sent to us. To end-to-end encrypt the backup itself, you can turn on Apple’s Advanced Data Protection.

After the headlines about therapy apps quietly sharing what people typed, you shouldn’t have to take privacy on faith. So the whole app is built so there’s simply nothing for us to leak.

Want the free practice the day it lands?

No founding decision required. Leave an email and I’ll tell you the moment it’s ready. The daily practice is free, forever.

Founding members

Be there at the start, at a price that never moves.

The daily practice is free forever. Selfworth Plus adds the optional depth programs: perfectionism, the kind voice, assertiveness, and the insight layer.

€29.99 / year (planned) founding rate

Founding members lock Plus at the launch price for as long as they stay subscribed. It won’t rise for them, even when it goes up for everyone after. Plus a 30-day founding trial instead of the usual 14. Plus and its pricing arrive at launch; the daily practice is free now, and always.

  • The full daily practice stays free, forever.
  • Nothing is charged now. Plus bills through the App Store at launch.
  • Cancel in two taps, anytime, from your phone’s settings.
  • Rough-day support is never behind a paywall.

Founding pricing is open while it’s just me building this. It closes when Selfworth ships to the App Store. No countdowns, no pressure.

Reserve your founding place

Get the first TestFlight builds, the founding price lock, and a note the day it ships.

You’re on the founding list.

One quick thing, it genuinely shapes what I build. Plus is planned at €29.99/year, and the full daily practice is always free. As a founding member, your Plus price stays locked for as long as you’re subscribed. Would you want Plus?

Thank you, that helps more than you’d think.

I’ll be in touch with the first builds. In the meantime, here’s one real day of the practice you can try on paper:

Open the one-page evidence log

Honest answers

Is this therapy?
No. Selfworth is a self-help practice built on cognitive-behavioral and self-compassion methods. It isn’t therapy, diagnosis, or treatment, and it doesn’t replace care from a professional. If you’re working with a clinician, it can sit alongside that, a place to actually do the work between sessions.
Do you do affirmations?
No, on purpose. Repeating things you don’t believe tends to backfire for low self-esteem, and the research bears that out. Everything here anchors to real things you actually did, written in your own words.
Will it guilt me with streaks?
Never. A missed day doesn’t zero anything out. Five of seven days counts as a full week, and on a hard day, showing up at all counts. The whole app is built to be on your side, not to pressure you.
Is my data safe?
It stays on your phone. No account, no analytics, no ads, nothing sold. Optional iCloud backup goes only to your own private Apple iCloud. There’s no Selfworth server holding your journal. If you want the backup itself end-to-end encrypted, Apple’s Advanced Data Protection covers it.
What’s free, and what’s paid?
The entire daily practice (check-in, evidence log, answering the critic, the compassion break, weekly and monthly review) is free forever, along with all rough-day support. Selfworth Plus is optional: deeper guided programs and an insight layer for people who want to go further.
When does it launch, and what am I signing up for?
It’s in active development, built carefully by one person. Joining the founding list gets you the first TestFlight builds, the founding price lock on Plus if you ever want it, and a note the day it ships. Nothing is charged now.
Who made this?
One independent developer, building the thing he needed, with no investors to answer to. That’s why it’s private by default, honest about what it can and can’t do, and free where it counts.

A note from the maker

I built Selfworth first for myself, because the apps I tried either told me to repeat things I didn’t believe, or turned getting better into one more streak to fail at.

I’m not a clinic or a startup with a growth team. I’m one person who reads the research and sweats the details. That’s why this is private by default, careful about what it claims, and free where it actually matters. If that’s the kind of thing you’ve been looking for, I’d love for you to be there at the start.

Yours, Piet