Bad Advice on Personal Growth
Follow these simple practices and 10x your business!
Personal growth is an old buzzword in Silicon Valley culture. It's a topic that comes up often, and there's no shortage of advice out there on how to achieve it. Most of it is a re-iteration of the same three things:
Time management
Setting goals
Mindfulness
You’d think this stuff would lead us into a new Renaissance, but what we got are burnt out hustle bros, all painfully indistinguishable from one another. It doesn’t work, and it’s ironic that these ideas for “growth” encourage people to consume themselves with a one-track mentality that does anything but allow them to grow.
What people really need for personal growth is a holistic approach to living.
An alternative approach
I'd like to throw in another perspective: ignoring whatever your end goal is, personal growth essentially requires trying new things, having a quiet place to process them, and the ability to synthesize responses to your new experiences.
1. Find a quiet place
First and foremost, find yourself a quiet place. Think "Thoreau's cabin," where you don't allow yourself to be distracted by Skinner boxes, and you let yourself engage in thought and deep work. This is where you can find new things to try, and process events in your life.
Without this, and the discipline to turn off distractions: you're screwed. No amount of advice or practice will help.
2. Read
There's millennia of wisdom and knowledge hidden in books. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction, there should always be at least nuggets of new information or perspective in whatever you read.
There's one problem with reading though: you can't really become wise from it; you need to talk to experts about the things you read or risk misinterpreting and making dangerous mistakes.
3. Identify your values
Identify what it means for you to be a fully integrated person. Does that mean helping people? Creating art? Engaging in difficult work? Having strong relationships? Learning? Connecting with nature? Having discipline?
A fully integrated person isn't just one thing, but a balance of many things. Identify what you're missing.
4. Try new things
Try new things. Find what brings value to your life (fulfilling #3). You have to be a bit brave here because most people don't do that, and they're skeptical of people who try things. So you risk looking like an idiot or weirdo, if for example you decide to try learning interpretive dance.
5. Reflect
Go back to your cabin and try to find out what you've learned and how you can apply it. See what works for you, and drop what doesn't.
What is personal growth?
Personal growth is not about following specific advice or taking on specific habits. Instead, it's about trying new things, finding a quiet place to reflect, and being able to synthesize responses to your experiences. By doing so, you can become a more fully integrated person who is capable of reaching into different aspects of yourself to meet the world in a way that serves you and others, and live a fuller life.