I am not sure that being ok with your flaws and accepting them has to mean that you are not seeking to improve them. I think there is a healthy balance, one I'm still working towards, between recognizing where there is room for improvement, and accepting and valuing yourself as a worthy person despite your flaws. So a person with lower self-esteem can learn to see their flaws (and having low self-esteem would be one of these flaws) in a different way, as something that can be improved upon, but not as evidence that the person is worthless or fundamentally flawed, and this can be the key to improving self-esteem. Essentially: "I am flawed, and I am going to work on improvement, but that's ok, and I'm an ok person."

I think there can be a really fine line between complacency and growth. Of course to improve one has to see the flaws, however large or small, but one doesn't have to take those flaws to mean everything is wrong.

What a great question! I never thought to look at the building of self-esteem in that way, it really is a challenge.