In our Western culture, there is a widespread belief that high self-esteem is essential for psychological health. It is seen as a medicine that cures all ills. Many people are afraid to do anything that will harm their self-esteem. We are told that we should only think positively about ourselves, whatever the cost.
In the last century, a lot of research has been done on the relationship between self-esteem and psychological health. It has been found that people with high self-esteem are happier, have many friends, have motivation in life and are more optimistic than those with low self-esteem. The latter are more lonely, anxious and depressed. The conclusion is that self-esteem is the cause, psychological well-being is the effect, so if you increase someone's self-esteem, their psychological well-being will increase. A lot of programmes have been developed for this purpose, and in many states considerable amounts of money have been spent to make these programmes available to all citizens, especially children. This was also seen as important because it was thought that people with high self-esteem exhibited more healthy behaviour and were less abusive. It was assumed that a person would hurt others in order to feel stronger than them and thus reduce their frustration at not being able to see themselves as good enough. The aim was to reduce abusive behaviour through self-esteem training.

However, recent research shows that self-esteem is a consequence rather than a cause of healthy behaviour. One interesting study models this mechanism. Participants in the study were measured on both their intelligence and their self-esteem levels. Upon hearing the news that they had lower than average intelligence levels, high self-esteem individuals compensated by bullying others, while low self-esteem individuals compensated by being kind to other participants in the hope that they would be better accepted, if not for their intelligence, then for their kindness. Not only this research, but also the experience of the past decades has confirmed that self-esteem programmes have failed to reduce abusive and antisocial behaviour, contrary to expectations.
Self-esteem is a positive judgement about how good we are at the things that are important to us. Based on this definition, there are two ways to increase our self-esteem. One is to learn to value the things we are inherently good at and devalue the things we are weak at. The problem with this is that, in the event that we need the skills that we are weak in, we shut ourselves off from developing them. Our short-term desire to increase self-esteem can damage our long-term development.

The other way to increase our self-esteem is to develop the skills that we consider important.
This can have the disadvantage that we invest energy in things that we are not capable of achieving.
Self-esteem is not bad in itself, it is just important to look at it with a nuanced perspective. There is a healthy and an unhealthy new way to achieve it. Growing up in a supportive family and/or working hard to achieve goals you consider important are healthy paths to high self-esteem. Valuing ourselves at the cost of devaluing others is an unhealthy way. Unfortunately, most research on self-esteem does not separate these two modes, so research results will be unreliable.
Our self-esteem is not necessarily an objective reflection of our abilities. High levels do not necessarily mean that we are actually better than others, only that we think we are. It may be that someone lives their whole life under the illusion that they have special abilities, but if you ask those around them, they will refute this. A person suffering from a manic episode or narcissistic personality disorder also has high self-esteem, but no basis in reality, and the way they maintain this is unhealthy.

Even so, high self-esteem has one indisputable advantage: happiness.
And happiness contributes greatly to a good quality of life, so it's worth cultivating. However, it is also possible that high self-esteem, maintained at all costs, will come at too high a price as the path to happiness.
We can ask ourselves: what are the qualities that, if we are good at, we will judge our worthiness favourably? How are we doing with these qualities? We might ask our immediate acquaintances how they see us. How well does the way we see ourselves match the way those around us see us?