How to raise self-esteem: signs of low self-esteem and a self-esteem test

CareOps editorial team · October 20, 2026 · 7 min read

Mental wellness information and service guidance published by CareOps.

When someone says you did well, you shrug it off as luck, yet one small mistake stays with you for days. People often tell you to raise your self-esteem, but rarely tell you where to start. Self-esteem is not a fixed personality score; it is a habit of mind that rises and falls over a lifetime. Here is how to get a sense of where yours is now and build it step by step with approaches that have been studied.

Why is self-esteem so easily shaken? #

Self-esteem is your overall sense of how worthwhile you are. When that sense hangs on particular conditions, it shakes easily. Crocker and Park (2004) argued that how people pursue self-esteem matters more than whether it is high or low. When people stake their worth on grades, looks or approval and feel threatened there, they spend their energy protecting themselves instead of learning, and their relationships and wellbeing can wear down along the way.

So this guide focuses less on ‘believe you are good enough’ and more on changing the habits of thought and action that chip away at you, one at a time. Self-compassion, the way you treat yourself on a hard day, has its own guide: self-esteem and self-compassion.

What are the signs of low self-esteem? #

These are patterns that often show up when self-esteem is low. Recognizing a few of them does not mean something is wrong with you. Use them as a map for where to start.

• Compliments are hard to believe — you quickly erase good feedback with ‘they are just being nice’ or ‘I got lucky’.
• One mistake becomes all of you — stumbling over one sentence in a presentation turns into ‘I have always been bad at this’.
• You compare yourself often — the more you compare, the smaller your strengths look and the bigger everyone else’s do.
• Saying no and asking for help are hard — afraid of being disliked, you agree to too much and keep your own needs to yourself.
• You avoid new things or over-prepare — failing feels like proof that you are not enough, so you never start or keep polishing until it is perfect. The lazy perfectionist pattern looks a lot like this.
• Criticism stays with you — one comment replays in your head all day.

What can a self-esteem test tell me? #

The most widely used self-esteem test is the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, created by sociologist Morris Rosenberg. Its 10 items ask about your overall feelings toward yourself, such as how worthwhile you feel and how satisfied you are with yourself, and they mix positively and negatively worded statements. Schmitt and Allik (2005) translated it into 28 languages and gave it to 16,998 people in 53 nations. Its structure held up across many cultures, and every nation’s average was above the scale’s midpoint, which suggests most people see themselves at least somewhat positively.

If you also want to see how you treat yourself, try the self-compassion check. Self-esteem asks ‘am I good enough?’, while self-compassion asks ‘how do I treat myself when things are hard?’ Looking at both results side by side makes it clearer where to start.

How does low self-esteem affect you? #

Self-esteem and depression influence each other. In a meta-analysis of studies that followed the same people over time, Sowislo and Orth (2013) found that low self-esteem predicted later depression more strongly than depression predicted later self-esteem. With anxiety, the effects in both directions were similar. Looking after your self-esteem is connected to looking after your mood.

There is encouraging news too. Orth et al. (2018) pooled studies that followed more than 160,000 people aged 4 to 94 and found that average self-esteem stayed level for a while in adolescence, then rose strongly until about age 30 and kept rising until around 60. Self-esteem is not a fixed number; it grows with experience.

How do I start raising my self-esteem? #

One approach studied for self-esteem is the cognitive behavioral model described by British clinical psychologist Melanie Fennell. It looks in turn at a bottom-line belief such as ‘I am not good enough’, the rules built to protect against it and the self-criticism that comes up day to day. In the studies based on this model pooled by Kolubinski et al. (2018), programs that met weekly over time showed large effects. The five steps below turn that approach into everyday practice.

1. Write down the thoughts that chip away at you — when ‘what is wrong with me?’ comes up, note the sentence and the situation. After a week, you will see which ones keep returning. Our guide to cognitive distortions describes these thinking patterns.
2. Collect one piece of evidence a day — list your good qualities, then each day write down one small moment when one of them showed. It reverses the habit of erasing compliments.
3. Rewrite your personal rules — find rules like ‘everyone has to approve of me’ or ‘one mistake and it is over’ and turn them into sentences with room to breathe, such as ‘approval is nice, and I am okay without it’.
4. Test predictions with small experiments — pick one thing you usually avoid, such as sharing one idea in a meeting or turning down one request. Write down what you expect will happen, do it, then compare with what actually happened.
5. Change what you say to yourself on a bad day — think about what you would say to a friend who made the same mistake, and say it to yourself. You will find more practice in five self-compassion exercises.

If writing these thoughts down on your own feels hard, you can start by sorting through them one at a time in a conversation.

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