How often have you told yourself, 'I cannot be loved', 'I am not wealthy enough', 'I am not intelligent enough', 'I am not resourceful enough', 'I am not fluent enough', 'I am not pretty or handsome enough' etc.

How sensitive are you to criticism? Are you often hostile, even though you know that your reason for being hostile isn't enough to cause you to react in such ways?

Self esteem refers to the amount of importance we attribute to our own worth. It refers to the assumptions, judgements and general beliefs we have about ourselves.

When a person mostly assumes worse case scenarios, or mostly chooses to accommodate thoughts that support negative outcomes of themselves or their efforts, low self esteem can be the case.

How often have you played down your own need for pleasantries and good treatment within your love life, or even among friends.

Often, people describe themselves using past experiences. Do experiences at an earlier stage in life define who you currently are? Do these experiences shape the kinds of esteem thoughts you have of yourself?

People will always compare where they currently are with where they've been; And also, where they are in relation to where they hope or would like to be.

When the expectation of where you'd like to be does not match where you're at right now, disappointment and self-judgement can happen. And self esteem can become ruffled.

If a person experiences life from a low self esteem point of view, there is a possibility that this could make them prioritize the pursuit of experiences that they hope will soothe the voids, the insufficiency, or the feeling of being stuck.

Often, this kind of pursuit is of the gratifying type. A repeated sequence of feel-good quests and void-fillers.

Are you great at your job? Have you been chasing personal development hoping that you'll at a point feel good enough to deserve a promotion or a raise in pay? However, you remain uncomfortable about the idea of a pay-rise because you think 'You aren't still good enough to deserve one?

Are you often suspicious and unbelieving when people tell you that you look very good, but in private you keep trying to outdo yourself using beauty tips every now and then; with the hopes of finally feeling good that you do look good?

Low self esteem can keep a person stuck on a feel-good quest and its refill over and over again.

Without knowledge of who you really are, and the understanding to value yourself in spite of any imperfections (percieved or otherwise), the quest to fill a percieved insufficiency can go on forever.

Your vision of self has to be more compelling than the mere feel-good quest. The concept of self has to be re-evaluated in terms of 'Who You really are', and 'Who You could be'. Then goals can be set and pursued.