Dive in

In my experience, the way you end up doing good in the world has very little to do with how good your initial plan was.

Advice for people who want to do something big, interesting, or important, but who utterly lack the ability to commit themselves to a particular action (because they can't convince themselves it's worth doing):

It's important to possess a minimal level of ability to update in the face of evidence, and to actually change your mind. But by far the most important thing is to just dive in.

First, become able to feel conviction even in the face of high uncertainty. Second, learn how to weigh your options so hard that by the time you've picked the best available action, no part of you has an urge to go back into "deliberation mode" until you encounter new evidence or ideas that would have changed the result of your deliberation. Third,... See more

The only way to get a good model of the world inside your head is to bump into the world, to let the light and sound impinge upon your eyes and ears, and let the world carve the details into your world-model.

The way to end up with a good plan is not to start with a good plan, it's to start with some plan, and then slam that plan against reality until reality hands you a better plan.

The idea doesn't have to be good, and it doesn't have to be feasible, it just needs to be the best incredibly concrete plan that you can come up with at the moment. Don't worry, it will change rapidly when you start slamming it into reality. The important thing is to come up with a concrete plan, and then start executing it as hard as you can — whi... See more