Coaching practices for Assumption Audit

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Assumption Audit, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• My conclusion only makes sense because of a bunch of things I’m silently taking for granted about people and how the world works
• My plan feels solid until I notice it quietly depends on a whole stack of things just going my way
• My whole plan quietly rests on a handful of things I’ve just taken for granted
• In my head the things I’m sure of and the things I’m just guessing at all run together as one blur, so I end up treating my assumptions like hard limits
• My conclusion feels airtight and yet something nags at me, and I think it’s that the whole thing only holds if a couple of unspoken things are true

Practices that may help

1. Surface and examine the assumptions you are making
   Name the assumptions filling the gap between the data you selected and the interpretation you reached.
   The Ladder of Inference
2. Name the assumptions that must hold for the plan to work
   Every plan rests on assumptions — list them and ask how likely each one is.
   Margin of Safety
3. Map and stress-test your key assumptions
   Before executing, list the assumptions the plan depends on — then ask which ones would kill it if wrong.
   Red Teaming: Stress-Testing Plans Before They Fail
4. Separate facts from assumptions explicitly
   Sort what you actually know from what you’re assuming, in two visible columns.
   First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable
5. Surface and test underlying assumptions
   Identify the implicit assumptions that your reasoning depends on and test whether they hold.
   Socratic Questioning
6. Apply extra scrutiny when a choice feels obviously good
   Positive affect is as reliable a bias-trigger as fear — audit opportunities that feel like obvious wins.
   The Affect Heuristic — When Feelings Substitute for Facts
7. Test the big assumption behind your immunity
   Design a small experiment to check whether the assumption keeping you stuck is actually true.
   Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
8. Surface the hidden premises
   Find the unstated assumptions that the argument needs to work.
   Argument Mapping
9. Regression-to-mean awareness in JOLs
   Discount your highest-confidence JOLs most — they are the most likely to be inflated.
   Judgments of Learning: Why You Misjudge What You’ve Learned
10. Default to assuming you’ve been misunderstood
    After any important message, assume it landed differently than you intended — then check.
    Closeness-Communication Bias

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.