I had very low self-esteem too, but decided that being around positive and supportive persons was not one of the things I could do to improve it, as I avoided everyone and would automatically think they saw bad in me anyway, had I been around them due to a lifetime of feeling like people were judging me badly. That would have created more negative reinforcements and lowered my self esteem further., to try to get validation through them. So, in my case, I decided to do everything myself, once I was motivated enough during my late teens when I was at that point of a nervous breakdown and several daily vomiting episodes. Some things I learned through research what to do, but other things I came up on my own. They included:
--creating different positive passwords (one or more good traits about me) to log into my different online accounts
--writing a list of several of my accomplishments (big, medium and/or small) on my wall to look at every day.
--visualizing regularly in detail me succeeding at those things I desired or feared, and had yet to accomplish
--whenever a negative thought occurs, after at least briefly learning from that, find something positive related to that.
--whenever a negative thought occurs, after at least briefly learning from it, divert your mind to something positive in your environment or life that is unrelated to that negative thought.
--focus on your efforts more than the results
--when someone says something bad about you, think more of them as not above you, but you being kinder or stronger there if you did not deserve that.
--spend more time doing healthy things that you feel you are good at, to feel more positive about yourself
--spend more time doing healthy things you enjoy, to have less times of negative thoughts
--reward yourself periodically with something, preferably with something not unhealthy, even if it costs some money.
--allow yourself to not have to be perfect. We all need breaks to recharge, and can have days of less effort.
--change your physical posture or expressions to a more self-confident state, to get you at least temporarily out of that more negative mindset,
--use humor on occasion, like if mistakes occur or if you felt on occasion you could have done better
--be around positive and supportive persons (others may need this more than I)
--learn from any mistakes or wrongs, and try not to repeat them.
--replace after a period of time one unhealthy routine with a good one, related or not.
--do good deeds on occasion for others
--focus more daily on the positives of you initiating and completing needed tasks, and your functioning there, and when you do even small good things for yourself and others.
--Replace any negative obsessions with positive/healthy ones, if you cannot stop obsessions.
--Go at your pace for one or more of the above, making sure you pick attainable goals, but realize the more such things you find you are able to do, and the longer your time is spent there, the quicker your self esteem should improve.
--Get others' advice, as there are so many ways to improve self esteem. I just wrote what worked for me.
--If your self-esteem ever improves too much, it's ok to stop most of these type of things as I find too much self-esteem turns off many persons, or may be unhealthy too.
