Five Things That Matter If You Want to Overcome Low Self-Esteem

1. Your self-esteem can be harmed by your thoughts and beliefs. But changing only your thoughts is not sufficient if you intend to overcome overcome low self-esteem. Unless you don't work you don't work with unconscious motives and intentions and re-integrated suppressed qualities, you will miss your aim. It's not just that you stop at the halfway mark, but unconscious motives can undermine the work with your thoughts, making the efforts to overcome your low self-esteem null and void.

2. Time-robbing examinations of your past are useless and can actually prevent you from your goal to restore a healthy self-esteem. Detecting the reason for your low self-esteem will not help you. Knowing that you failed at potty-training (or, to be more serious, that your parents were cold and aloof) might be eye-opening, but it won't change you. What needs to uncovered are the lessons you have learned. And these lessons are much easier and much more reliable to spot if examine your behavior, feelings, and thoughts of the present, because they are the signposts to the specific lessons.

3. Our brain is not a tape-recorder (or an mp3-player for that matter)you can re-record any time. That is why repetitious affirmations, CDs with 'positive' beliefs, or tapes with 'hypnotic' messages are a waste of your time and money.
Our mind is much more complex than a hard drive that you can simply format or overwrite. We are still humans and not robots. If you want to change, it takes the complete involvement of your whole being. Tempting as such offers are, you'd better spare yourself the disappointment and engage in a wholehearted and comprehensive change.

4. Low self-esteem is formed in early childhood at a time when the mind is most receptive. That is why quick-fix solutions, or some tips and tricks do not work. Tips and tricks may work as a short term solution or to fake superficial self-assured appearance. But as your inner experience won't change, it will still be a stressful and burdensome experience.

5. Your day-to-day self-esteem is usually assessed by the ego or your small self. This assessment is based on the values of the ego, passed on by parents and society. But there is another self. It may be hidden by the ego, because its worries, needs, and fears are so dominant. But self, what I call the Natural Self, can be accessed any time you want, albeit it may take some time and work to access the Natural Self easily and on a stable basis. Once you are in the state of the Natural Self you can experience its self-worth that goes along with it. And other than the self-worth of your ego, that worth is unconditional and unharmed.
So, to overcome low self-esteem it is actually much more advantageous to overcome your ego and rest in your Natural Self than to artificially 'raise' or 'boost' the self-esteem of the small self.