When Does Altruism Strengthen Altruism?

I like the analogy of creating muscle strength, where additional weight can create more muscles in some circumstances and injuries in others. I fear, however, that people might interpret this too narrowly, only looking at short-term altruistic actions and not a longer-term goal. When thinking about change, it's easy to get focused either on too many things or changes that are less relevant, leaving little capacity for bigger changes. Peter Wildeford's template for a quarterly review + plan discusses this using the rock, pebbles, sand analogy.

For some people, additional altruistic actions might be the most important thing now, but I think for many, it will be focusing on their careers, building skills or getting better at thinking about prioritizing where they want to be headed in their careers.

A community that encourages people to take more altruistic actions might lead people to wrongly prioritize, leading to less effective outcomes in the long run. While much comes down to individuals making their own decisions, it is harder to be part of a group where many people show signs of small altruistic actions when you're not doing this and are focussing on your career. I think what I'm feeling is a fear of an altruistic virtue-signalling competition that is used as a proxy for what we actually want: Steadily increasing our individual impact.

Personally, I think other virtues might be more helpful for building up the strength needed, as I recently wrote. Similarly, I expect others also to have different ways to impact. I think the combination of having a personal vision of being a person who will strongly value personal impact in combination with a growth and prioritization mindset who is strengthening their muscles in these areas could be a more general approach.