[sbuttgereit]

This. Self-esteem develops from personal achievement, not external praise. When you see the results of your actions and those actions have produced positive results, you gain that sense of achievement even if others don't recognize it.

This is the big miss from the self-esteem advocate crowds... the ones that do the participation trophies. They aren't creating self-esteem with worthless praise and merit-less awards... they're creating a dependency on the praise of others and that's not healthy: it creates the opposite of esteem when not fulfilled.