Sometimes, a feeling like low self-worth presents. A solution occurs: Get validation! I then get validation. Susan, or Clive, says: "You're wonderful". I now feel great, because I agree with Susan and Clive. I believe I'm wonderful. It turns out I do not have low self-worth. To have low self-worth is to have a poor view of oneself. If Susan or Clive says: "You're wonderful", yet I do not believe I do, I will say, "Susan / Clive: you're wrong". I will gain no satisfaction from being told that I am wonderful, because I do not think I am.
Furthermore, let's imagine that the validation comes in this form: "You are completely average. You have a similar number of virtues and defects as other people. You are no better, no worse." This ought to be a great solution to the "low self-worth problem". It brings me up to the same level as the rest of humanity. But, when I suffer from "low self-worth", such an assertion leaves me unrelieved and profoundly dissatisfied. Most people are the same. Try telling the people around you that they are perfectly ordinary and average, just like everyone else, with no special merits. Barely a one will thank you.
It is quite clear that the problem is not low self-worth. The problem is the entitlement or the desire to be viewed and treated as special, in other words distinct from and better than others, if not than everyone. A slotted spoon does not hold much soup, so "low self-worth" is usually merely an indication that the specialness monster, which has a rapid metabolism and a huge and ever-increasing appetite, is hungry. What's more, the more you feed it, the more it grows, and the more sustenance it needs.
Let's look at a slightly different situation: I look for validation, get it, but then, as in the counter-example above, feel dissatisfied because I actually resist the validation, believing myself to be worthless. So, there is such a thing as low self-worth! In a way, yes. However, when I have reacted like this, the funny thing is I'm not happy with that state of affairs either: I might think I'm worthless, and be resistant to consolation from others that I am wonderful, but feel disquieted, as though I really ought to be wonderful, and something has gone terribly wrong.
In this case too, the entitlement to be wonderful is perfectly intact; I've just somehow failed to fill my shoes, like a millionaire who accidentally finds himself in straitened circumstances or a king who has woken up in the life of a pauper. I might believe I'm presently a pauper, but I do not accept it: it is not who I am "meant" to be. The self whose worth is low is only the current manifestation. The real self is still supreme, just temporarily embarrassed.
The above examples are really not about low self-worth, which is indeed a genuine phenomenon. When I've encountered it, it's very striking: the individual expresses the view that they are worthless but seems oddly at peace with it and acts accordingly. In these cases, the person might sometimes be amenable to taking a more expansive and ambitious view of themselves.
No, the above examples are really about various forms of pride and how they can manifest as low self-worth. If we're going to solve a problem, we need to know what the problem is.