Precaution: I don't have a goal to depress or impress anyone, it's just my thoughts on the topic. I don't know if it can, but consider this a warning. I'm also not a doctor and not a shrink. My opinion is that self esteem should be adequate. What?! What a stupid truism! Let me explain. You shouldn't have high self esteem: we most likely are not the best versions of ourselves. If we think we're the best, what to strive for? And it is a fact there's almost always something to improve, so high self esteem is inadequate and somehow needs to be re-evaluated. Nota Bene: high as in "I'm good as-is" or "I'm definitely better than everyone else". Maybe I'm wrong and we should tell ourselves "wegoodbruh", but I really don't think that it's a good idea... You could try it! The author assumes no responsibility or liability for your actions though. Self Esteem can be high, but I think it shouldn't be. I understand though that for a person with high self esteem can be hard to know if they have it high and re-evaluating it may even be an impossible task. Low Self Esteem can be two distinct things: it either is adequate or not. Maybe you really do great stuff and underrate yourself OR you are a lazy ass (this is just an example)... And then your low self esteem assessment is accurate. The problem is that it's hard to know if this is the case for oneself. Unfortunately I personally don't have solutions for you if you have an undervalued self esteem. Probably it could be helpful to list your actions and achievements, and see for yourself or ask for an opinion from other people. Let's try to imagine for a second a person which has a low self esteem because they didn't accomplish anything in quite some time. Well, then they're right. And this signal, low self esteem, is telling them to do something. So, low self esteem isn't bad per se. It's a signal, but it's not always a clear one. Either you have to re-evaluate your achievements or do more stuff. If Self Esteem is low, something should be done about it. Note though that I'm not a judge: I didn't say that people should do stuff. We've only observed that a person has low self esteem because of lack of accomplishment. If a person lays on a sofa all day every day happy and doesn't see a problem... Well, neither do I, that's their business. See, it seems that my self esteem hinges on my actions: e.g. did I try to do something new. Yours could be different, but I suppose the concept still holds if true. E.g. "I feel like shit because I'm rude", so being polite or helpful or less rude could improve self esteem. In my self evaluation, self esteem is a binary system: "Needs work" and "Working". Maybe in future I'll become rich or popular as fuck, and I'll have to deal with high self esteem, we'll see. I suppose high self esteem is a rare psychological condition. I don't think that even rich, famous or successful people often think high of themselves, quite often the opposite is true, and then they need to re-evaluate their situation. I'm not in any way saying it's simple. Even the great and powerful people struggle to beat the blues, it's a hard task. Self Esteem: Evaluate as accurately as you can, with outside opinion if needed. Low: beat existing challenges, start very small Mid: just be; or do what you've planned or Mid: find new challenges and beat them High: find EVEN HARDER challenges and beat them, rinse and repeat This is an excerpt of my own thought process. At some point I got to a low-ish point, but was lucky that my brain pointed me in the direction of doing. My previous self could still wallow without any action. In my eyes the only way is to try to do stuff that we want to do and achieve, and then some. As cliche as it sounds, most barriers are in our brains. I hope all of this was encouraging and not discouraging.