One approach to this could be tying your self-esteem into something other than your personal impact. You might try setting your goal to “be an effective altruist” or “be a member of the effective altruist tribe”. There are reasonable and achievable criteria (ie. the GWWC pledge) for this, and performance of people on the tail in no way effects your ability to pass these criteria. And, while trying to improve one’s own impact is a thing that effective altruists do, it’s not necessary to do or to achieve any specific criteria of success to meet the self-esteem criteria.
A useful supplement to this attitude is a feeling of excitement about where effective altruism is going, which is a feeling that is actually enhanced by the achievements of the long tail. (“I can’t wait to see what these amazing people are going to accomplish!”)
One approach to this could be tying your self-esteem into something other than your personal impact. You might try setting your goal to “be an effective altruist” or “be a member of the effective altruist tribe”. There are reasonable and achievable criteria (ie. the GWWC pledge) for this, and performance of people on the tail in no way effects your ability to pass these criteria. And, while trying to improve one’s own impact is a thing that effective altruists do, it’s not necessary to do or to achieve any specific criteria of success to meet the self-esteem criteria. A useful supplement to this attitude is a feeling of excitement about where effective altruism is going, which is a feeling that is actually enhanced by the achievements of the long tail. (“I can’t wait to see what these amazing people are going to accomplish!”)