basically: define for yourself what makes someone worthy of liking. Try to close the distance between you and those qualities. And then learn to be generous enough to bestow your esteem on anyone who basically meets those criteria (which now, hopefully, includes you)

this provides a real challenge if you consider yourself a good critical thinker and judge of character

you have to make “wanting to do/know about x” the more powerful desire than “wanting to be perceived as able to do/as knowing x” and things sort of fix themselves, I think