Coaching practices for Assumption Mapping

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

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

• 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
• On paper my reasoning checks out, but the conclusion still feels shaky and I can’t locate why
• I notice I believe things mostly based on who said them
• My conclusion only makes sense because of a bunch of things I’m silently taking for granted about people and how the world works
• I’m operating on some picture of how this situation works, but it’s all running in the background where I can’t actually inspect it

Practices that may help

1. Argument Mapping
   Argument mapping is the practice of drawing the logical structure of an argument as a diagram — claims, supporting reasons, objections, and rebuttals made spatially explicit. Developed into a pedagogical system by Tim van Gelder, it is one of the few critical-thinking interventions with controlled-study support: students who learned argument mapping showed significantly larger gains in reasoning ability than those in conventional classes.
2. Separate facts from assumptions explicitly
   Sort what you actually know from what you’re assuming, in two visible columns.
   First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable
3. Surface the hidden premises
   Find the unstated assumptions that the argument needs to work.
   Argument Mapping
4. Evaluate the argument structure, not the source
   Map the logic and evaluate it independently of who made the argument.
   Argument Mapping
5. 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
6. Name your model explicitly
   Make the map visible by articulating your current model of the situation in plain language.
   The Map Is Not the Territory
7. IFS Parts Mapping, Made Practical
   Parts mapping is an Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz) practice of systematically identifying and visually or narratively charting the distinct inner parts — critics, worriers, peacekeepers, wounded exiles — and their relationships to each other. It is a diagnostic and orientation tool: it shows you the terrain of your inner system before you try to work with any single part. Evidence sits within the broader IFS and parts-work literature, which is growing but not yet on par with CBT or DBT.
8. Use analogies to transfer structure from known to unknown
   Map an unfamiliar concept onto a familiar one that shares the same relational structure.
   Concrete Examples: How to Make Abstract Ideas Stick
9. Constantly distinguish the map from the territory
   A model is a simplification — know precisely where yours breaks down.
   Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach
10. Map the relational structure, not the surface features
    Ask what relationships are shared between domains, not just what objects look similar.
    Analogical Reasoning

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