My self-esteem is derived from being a human being. I'm of value because I'm a person, and not for any other reason. This is true for everyone else, too.
One would not rank children in an elementary school class by value, from high to low. To do so would be grotesque: with adults, likewise.
Different people do not have different values, based on a tally of virtues and defects. To suppose that is precisely the error of many abominable value systems and regimes over the millenia.
Virtues and defects do not inhere in the person: they are not who I am but patterns I am performing.
Everyone is capable of all virtues, and everyone is capable of all defects, although the precise manifestations vary. Murder in the heart is murder by nature.
The purpose of identifying defects is to get rid of them.
The identification of defects will produce guilt, but guilt is a sign of morality, and to try to avoid that is to try to avoid a key aspect of being a human being. I can and should feel guilty for bad things I do, but we have a step for that: Step Nine. When I make amends, I can let go of the guilt. To have no guilt for wrongdoing would be the trait of a psychopath, and that is not a condition I aspire to.
What not to do is to let the guilt sluice across into an assessment of my value as a person and have it turn into shame, which is quite inappropriate and quite ill-founded.
As to identifying virtues: any past good actions might indeed be virtuous, but they are gone; they are past; the meal eaten yesterday does not feed me today.
They are also not mine: I did not make them, and the grace to perform them came from God. The laurels are not mine.
The only question, therefore, is this: What virtues would God have me practise today?
This is the simple and, in reality, only petition in Step Eleven, along with the power to practise those virtues.
I need ask only What Right Action Should I Take Today?
Application of the programme, prayer, meditation, the literature, and consultation with sound persons tempers the excesses and retrains errant thinking.
When I act well, I have nothing to worry about.