Toxic types of self-esteem arise when we pursue self-esteem for its own sake, instead of letting it be a byproduct of being a well-adjusted human being: trying to feel good about something instead of becoming good at something.

The theory is that if everyone has high self-esteem, then everyone will be successful and live a happy life. If a society was inoculated with high self-esteem, it would end poverty, crime, and violence.

Self-esteem is how we think we are doing in our own worlds. It is made up of an internal valuation of ourselves. It cannot be an objective assessment, as we decide what our metrics are.

True self-esteem is not thinking that you lack nothing - it's being comfortable with the fact that you're not great at everything. Accept it and move on.

Researchers have found that there are different types of self-esteem. There are two broad categories:

Toxic self-esteem is easy to notice. One can see a disconnect between how the person sees himself, and how the world sees him.

First, give yourself the headspace to work on a solution by accepting your feelings surrounding your low self-esteem. Your feelings are temporary. Accept them for the moment. Don't cover them up. Don't try to overcompensate for them.

There’s actually very little correlation between self-esteem and success.  Research on self-esteem strongly correlates with how good people feel, in general. 

People with low self-esteem tend to be hard on themselves and take everything very personally.