Self-Esteem and Shortcomings  

One of the major problems that can come along with high self-esteem is difficulty in seeing your own short comings.  People who have high self-esteem tend to have unrealistically positive views of themselves, their abilities, and their achievements.  They think they are more attractive, more likeable, smarter, and more moral than other people.  They tend to not be aware of their problems in these areas and do not have a good awareness of their deficits in general.

To further compound the problem, people with high self-esteem tend to respond poorly to negative feedback.  They are likely to be defensive and blame the messenger rather than take responsibility for their own behavior.  They are likely to blame clear problems or failures on situational factors or on someone else; anything but their own capabilities or behavior.  

This approach gets in the way of learning and is toxic to relationships.  People who can’t acknowledge their own deficits or mistakes are also not capable of making positive changes in what they do.  They tend to be stuck with what they have and to not consider other options.  Likewise, the inability to acknowledge your own behavior has created hurt feelings or a relational problem makes it very difficult to create a mutual bond with someone else.  People with high self-esteem are at risk of coming across as being very self-centered and not very rewarding relationship partners.

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