I think it is a bad idea to unconditionally love yourself. To grow and improve as a person, you must be self-critical. Otherwise you delude yourself into thinking that you are better than you are.
Believe it or not, many many people SHOULD be asking this question, so I’m glad you did so. These are some things I recommend to my friends when they are feeling low self-esteem or unsatisfied in life, that seem to work.
Like @elbanditoroso said, you can love yourself, but maybe not unconditionally. We all have things we can improve about ourselves, but loving yourself is really important. Liking who you see in the mirror is critical.
I don’t know of exercises—see posts above and below mine for that—I just wanted to chime in to say: I think unconditional love is a good thing. I’ve recently been discovering just how motivating it is to be in environments that practice if not unconditional love, then unconditional encouragement and support. I’m also working in that direction for myself, and I find it much easier to be self-critical and then make (and follow through on) plans for improvement when I don’t tie my sense of self-worth or self-image to my current level/ability at things. But then, I think of unconditional love more as being kind, patient, and encouraging with myself—which sounds a bit different from what others are suggesting above.
@elbanditoroso Seems to me that love, and acceptance, are not the same things as absence of criticism. In fact, allowing no faults without withholding love and acceptance seems like an issue to me.