Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Strategies for Personal Growth , published by Raemon on the AI Alignment Forum. Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about personal growth (any form of deliberate gain in capability or subjective wellbeing). We were talking past each other a lot. Eventually it became clear that most of their recent growth had been healing and blocker-fixing based, whereas most of mine had been skill based. And this was shaping where we were naturally inclined to look. This prompted me to take stock of all the strategies I could think of for growth. Here's what I've thought of so far. These aren't quite natural clusters (some overlap, or don't quite fit into the same ontology), but seem like they cover most avenues: Low-Key Practice Serious Practice Learning Changing environment and incentives Discovering things you enjoy/are-good-at (Try things!) Blockers and Cheat Codes Healing Deep Improvements to Mental Architecture (Internal Alignment) This is somewhat related to Lifelonglearner's Development Framework of Rationality, and Brienne's 4 quadrants, but through a somewhat different lens. Overview of Strategies Low-Key Practice Working on a skill or habit you mostly understand, occasionally, in the background. Typically yields a pretty small return (but one which adds up over the years, especially if you do it consistently). Serious Practice Working on a skill with your all – spending hour(s) each day on it. This can yield more return but is requires more cognitive focus and energy. This seems qualitatively different from low-key practice. Sometimes this is Deliberate Practice in the technical sense (quick feedback loops, building mental models that your brain can cache into chunks), but not always. Learning Sometimes you're learning new information, that is able to rapidly turn into a skill at a much faster rate than normal. You could try to learn math/violin/programming from first principles and practice, but a tutorial or a teacher who has carefully optimized their explanations can quickly give you entire new skills in a short timespan. (Making the best use of them may require practice as well, but during the initial learning period you may be gaining huge returns) Changing Your Environment and/or Incentives The fastest route I've personally found to overall self improvement is changing environment – a new job, a new apartment, a new social network. These can radically change how you feel about yourself, or what is easy, or what behaviors are reinforced. I know multiple people who had trouble focusing at work, got a job that they actually cared about, or which required the skills they enjoyed most, or had coworkers that provided subtle reinforcement in the right directions. I briefly lived in an apartment building with a gym, and I found it way easier to exercise there than I did at other places. (Even homes where I got some exercise equipment) It's possibly to reshape your environment on purpose (which I think yields improvement roughly on par with moderate skill practice), but the most powerful returns here have been sort of random and hard to control in my experience. Discovering Something You Enjoy or are Well Suited For (Try Things) People vary how much certain skills and activities resonate with them, and how fast they can improve. If you find something you really enjoy, you may be much more able to put in the hours to practice it, or you may gain skill much more rapidly than other other people. I have a friend who would never have predicted they'd be good at dancing a priori, but who tried it on a whim and it was amazing and changed both their physical well being and social life. Blockers/Cheat Codes Simple things, that if you only knew to do them, would radically change your quality of life or capabilities. Sometimes there's a concrete thing blocking you: You'r...