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MichaelVassar comments on That other kind of status - Less Wrong
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Speaking of self-esteem, check out Roy Baumeister, Laura Smart and Joseph M. Boden's "Relation of Threatened Egotism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem".
Bryan Caplan uses the fact that people rarely have delusions of mediocrity or obscurity to argue for a Szaszian conception of mental illness.
I had delusions of relative mediocrity for years, though I don't see them as mental illness, just morality tinged former belief, my equivalent of having been a theist perhaps. OTOH, it might be more accurate to say that such delusions also have an element of laziness and of desire to avoid responsibility. Arguably I didn't think that I was less capable than I was. More like I didn't see the opportunities to take risks, work harder, seek diverse experiences, challenge assumptions and take on more responsibility, etc that I now do see and which lead to more ability growth.
Nick Bostrom, seems to me to still be held back by similar delusions, and I see them as his major weakness.
Are there any specific things you did to overcome your delusions of mediocrity, or was it more of an undirected change over time (or something else again)?