The most encouraging task you have in your hands, it's rewarding yourself. You mastered a new task you never knew you could, you finished a grand project, you made some big improvements? Reward yourself, but internal rewards : be proud of yourself, be nice to yourself, compliment yourself! When you give yourself these rewards, you will realize how much less of external rewards you need.
Make a daily routine out of giving yourself rewards, you can have so many reasons. For example : you are getting angry easily in a certain situation, but today you've been really calm when that occurred , or normally you are debating in most of the conversations you have, but today you choose to just listen , first acknowledge how hard it is for you to do so, then reward yourself. Treating yourself in a loving way and loving yourself it's all that self-esteem means, and rewarding it's such a wonderful way to manifest the love. When you master the rewarding your self task, you can also reward others!
Stay positive!
[source of picture] (flickr)