Self esteem is feeling good about yourself and, in order to do that, you have to know yourself and befriend yourself. Pretend you are your friend and treat yourself as if you were! Stand up for yourself when "that" voice says something ugly about you.

When I would catch myself making fun of myself or saying something disparaging, I'd "yell" in my head, "SUPPORT!" and three guys in togas would come running from somewhere around my left ear into the dome of my head carrying a Corintian column, set it up, then run out the right ear It amused me and made me feel good that I had this instantaneous "support" from myself.

There are good things about you. Do you have a sense of humor? Use it! You are not "stupid" or you w/could not be here (see, you are on your side already, you came here for help :-) Use your smarts to help you combat the ugly voice. Think about what it says, "You're dumb!" is not very sophisticated? (understatement :-) Talk back to it and use 3-syllable words to silence it! Or, just agree with it and shrug; will make it mad Everyone does "dumb" or "stupid" things, makes mistakes, etc., you forgive yourself, learn from the mistake and do better the next time. Why are you harder on yourself than you are on other people? Best yet, don't compare yourself to other people, just to yourself. Work hard to make mistakes and take chances; there's no other way to learn! You cannot learn while you are doing things perfectly, that implies you already know "that". Mistakes are wonderful gifts, they mean we are learning new things.