How do I overcome my low self-esteem? I have an extremely low opinion of myself and I have zero belief in my own ability to learn new things and overcome difficult ideas or applications. The heart of my issue, I think, is that when I meet failure in trying to learn or do something, I immediately give up. Or I eventually give up after a tiny short try. I can't sustain effort in the face failure or difficulty. For example, I'm trying to read SICP, but for the past week I've been stuck on page 40 which presents a change counting algorithm. Now, I'm not stuck in the sense that I'm actually actively trying to figure out how the algorithm works because what I'm actually stuck on is *attempting* to understand it. I'm not even trying it because I know from the first and second reading of it that 1.) I do not understand it, and 2.) It will take sustained effort to come to understanding.
I have this terrible habit of giving up in the face of anything that challenges me. It must be a combination of non-belief in myself and accumulated laziness (that is, not trying it over a sustained period of time). But I have a desire to change, at least I think I do. I want to be able to read something or do something (subjectively) difficult. But it's not like I can just start doing that right now and immediately get over this issue, so how do I get over this issue? What can I read, what steps can I take, who/what do I listen to? Is this purely habit or a combination of habit and belief? How do I get rid of this habit if I've been doing it since childhood, and how do you get rid of such an ingrained belief of personal failure?
I don't want to be in love in myself, or the other pop-psych soykaf that I could read, but I do want to change my habits and thoughts into structures that actually help me achieve my goals instead of always actively working against myself. Please lain, help me.