Coaching practices for Big Assumption

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Big Assumption, 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
• 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 plan feels solid until I notice it quietly depends on a whole stack of things just going my way
• I can name the deep fear that keeps me stuck
• My whole plan quietly rests on a handful of things I’ve just taken for granted

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. 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. Generous Interpretation
   Generous interpretation means defaulting to the most charitable plausible explanation for what someone did — assuming circumstance or misunderstanding before assuming bad character. It’s hard because of the fundamental attribution error: we reliably explain others’ behavior by their character while excusing our own by our circumstances. That asymmetry is one of the better-documented findings in social psychology, and correcting for it defuses a large share of avoidable conflict.
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. Decompose complex questions into sub-questions
   Break a hard forecasting question into smaller, estimable pieces and aggregate them.
   Superforecasting
8. Set charitable interpretation as your cognitive default
   Deliberately adopt the assumption that people are probably doing their best given their constraints.
   Hanlon's Razor: Never Attribute to Malice What Stupidity Can Explain
9. Check whether you’re demanding an unfair ambiguity premium
   Estimate what you’d accept under comparable known-odds risk — if your bar is much higher for unknown odds, that gap is the bias.
   Ambiguity Aversion — Why Unknown Odds Feel Worse Than Bad Odds
10. Translate beliefs into bets to reveal your true confidence
    Would you bet $100 on that belief at even odds? The answer often reveals the gap between claimed and actual confidence.
    Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Beliefs Rationally

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