How did you actually become more effective?

Like many people here, I think a lot about how to become more awesome. I'm fairly optimistic about my chances, because I can clearly remember times in the past when I was less awesome than I am now-- not necessarily less rational, but less productive and with fewer relevant skills.¹

So I've been thinking about what changes I believe have most improved my effectiveness, changes which have caused me to learn many useful things and/or greatly increased my productive capacity. I found the list interesting:

Getting into a comfortable, highly supportive relationship: it has tremendously decreased my level of anxiety, improved my motivation to maintain a basic level of functioning, and increased my reserve capacity.
Finding enjoyable, appropriately challenging but low-stress work. Work forces me to get out of the house and interact with other humans, keeps me away from harmful behaviors like playing video games for hours, provides mental stimulation, and boosts my self-worth. Since I work as a math tutor, it's also been great practice at teaching, doing math, and the kind of general personhood skills that fall under the heading of Professionalism.
Attempting very difficult things at which I was highly motivated to succeed (but was not necessarily successful). These are the times when I've learned the most.
Limiting my own access to time-wasters by using LeechBlock and being commited to a schedule(LW is certainly on the list of time-wasters).

Things which are notably not on the list:

Therapy. If you have found therapy helpful, I'd really appreciate hearing exactly how you used it. It hasn't been worth a damn for me.
ADD meds. (Depression meds were somewhat helpful when I was actually depressed, however.)
Ambitious self-improvement projects undertaken alone, or without major consequences for failure (including but not limited to diets, exercise programs, and extensive programs of independent study³).

So how have you actually improved your own effectiveness?

¹Some of these less-awesome past versions of me suffered from clinical depression, but the last time I had a major episode of depression I was able to deal with it much more purposefully than in the past and still accomplish a large percentage of the shit I was supposed to be doing, so I think there has been improvement independent of my state of mental health.

²Major consequences for failure seem to be very effective motivators, but since I want to undertake projects that are difficult enough to have a significant chance of failure, I would like these consequences to be highly motivating without being horribly costly, if possible. Ideas?

³I have learned a lot from pleasure reading, but I'm not sure how much was actually useful, and since I've been reading for pleasure since I can remember there's no easy before-and-after comparison to make.

Getting into a comfortable, highly supportive relationship: it has tremendously decreased my level of anxiety, improved my motivation to maintain a basic level of functioning, and increased my reserve capacity.
Finding enjoyable, appropriately challenging but low-stress work. Work forces me to get out of the house and interact with other humans, keeps me away from harmful behaviors like playing video games for hours, provides mental stimulation, and boosts my self-worth. Since I work as a math tutor, it's also been great practice at teaching, doing math, and the kind of general personhood skills that fall under the heading of Professionalism.
Attempting very difficult things at which I was highly motivated to succeed (but was not necessarily successful). These are the times when I've learned the most.
Limiting my own access to time-wasters by using LeechBlock and being commited to a schedule(LW is certainly on the list of time-wasters).

Things which are notably not on the list:

Therapy. If you have found therapy helpful, I'd really appreciate hearing exactly how you used it. It hasn't been worth a damn for me.
ADD meds. (Depression meds were somewhat helpful when I was actually depressed, however.)
Ambitious self-improvement projects undertaken alone, or without major consequences for failure (including but not limited to diets, exercise programs, and extensive programs of independent study³).

So how have you actually improved your own effectiveness?

My wife and I attend a therapist/counselor due to my deconversion. It has helped. If I had to try and pinpoint how, I'd say that simply having someone you're going to see regularly (for us, about 1x/mo) about your relationship has increased my desire to reconnect and work through conflicts rather than simply play the silent treatment game or be an ass about her mistakes or times when I've been hurt.

She's said the same. Basically, accountability. If I'm a jerk... I'm going to end up being embarrassed for my immaturity. I know better via in "far mode" but in "near mode" the desire for power and retaliation is still quite tempting and surrendering to a third party has a definite affect.

Our counselor also uses something called the "Emotionally Focused Therapy" method, which views romantic relationships as emotional dependencies/needs in order to help couples recognize that most arguments are not really about the topic of the argument but more aptly translated into phrases like, "Do you really value me? Are you here for me? Am I worth your time?" I haven't read the whole book and haven't really compared it to other views on this, but the method claims to have a higher success rate than others.

'Nuff rambling about my dirty laundry. Just wanted to chime in that at least one type of therapy in one setting is helpful.

For a different example that I think very poorly of, in my teen years during my drug/alcohol abuse state, my parents took my to a psychologist who after a perhaps 20min session in which I barely said anything other than the fact that I didn't really like my life and didn't get along with my parents, asked me if I'd like to try some anti-depressants to see if they'd help. While I may have had some symptoms, I was surprised back then and still am that after such a short period of time someone would have been ready to prescribe me something.

Edit: In re-thinking... could a counselor who's simply providing "accountability" be replaced by a close mutual friend, mentor of sorts, or someone else? Probably, though the guy is very good at guiding conversation, mediating, etc., and I was very impressed that he asked for specific goals in our first session. Basically, he asked, "If this work between us went perfectly, how would things look like at the end of many sessions?" I thought that was fantastic, as I really worried before deciding to try this that we'd be emptying our pockets for nebulous emotional venting sessions.

Therapy/counseling, for us, I think also adds incentive to care because we're paying for it. I want the best out of this guy's tool bag and having a financial investment in trying to improve our situation helps me, at least, stay focused on trying to work hard in our sessions.

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How did you actually become more effective?

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How did you actually become more effective?

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