Is a "sense of self" around past good actions helpful?

Until now I thought that Buddhism teaches that a sense of self is bad in all cases. Now I read that developing a sense of self around good actions can increase motivation for our spiritual development, and that we can choose to see 'not self' in bad past actions, and see 'self' in beneficial past actions. From this I gather that it could be beneficial to develop a sense of self. In my practice I don't really have a sense of self around good deeds yet. In general I don't really have much of a sense of self, perhaps low self esteem. Should this change? Does Buddhism encourage a sense of self around skillful actions to be developed?