Elm Model: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices

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

Practices that may help

1. Maintain a personal model catalog with examples
   Keep a written inventory of your models, each illustrated with a real example from your own experience.
   Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach
2. 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
3. Elaboration Likelihood Model, Made Practical
   The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) holds that persuasion travels one of two routes: the central route, where people carefully evaluate arguments and change their minds durably, and the peripheral route, where people use mental shortcuts (source attractiveness, social proof) and shift only temporarily. Which route dominates depends on motivation and cognitive capacity in the moment. The model is one of the most replicated frameworks in social psychology.
4. Apply several models to the same problem at once
   When models from different fields point to the same answer, confidence rises; when they conflict, you learn something important.
   Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach
5. Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach
   Charlie Munger argued that clear thinking requires a collection of models from multiple disciplines — a latticework — because any single mental model warps reality by over-predicting the phenomena it explains best. The approach is practitioner philosophy rather than empirically tested method, but it is grounded in real findings about cognitive biases, analogical reasoning, and multi-causal thinking.
6. Seligman’s PERMA Model, Made Practical
   Martin Seligman’s PERMA model identifies five pillars of well-being: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Unlike happiness models that treat well-being as a single variable, PERMA argues these five elements are each intrinsically valued and each independently improvable. Several PERMA-targeted interventions have randomized-trial support; others are mechanistically grounded with less direct evidence.
7. Trim model complexity
   Prefer the simplest model of a situation that still fits all the evidence.
   Occam’s Razor: Prefer the Simpler Explanation
8. The COM-B Model and Behavior Change Wheel
   COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behavior) is a diagnostic framework developed by Michie and colleagues that maps the three conditions any behavior requires: you must be able to do it, have the opportunity to do it, and want to do it. Research supporting COM-B as a systematic intervention framework is largely expert-consensus and observational rather than RCT; its main value is stopping you from applying the wrong lever.
9. The Fogg Behavior Model, Made Practical
   BJ Fogg’s model states that behavior happens when three elements converge at the same moment: sufficient motivation, sufficient ability, and a prompt. If a behavior isn’t happening, one of these three is the bottleneck — and diagnosing which one tells you exactly what to change. The model is practitioner-developed with strong theoretical grounding; large-scale RCT evidence is limited but the framework is widely used in product design and behavior change programs.
10. Collect models deliberately from fields outside your specialty
    Choose one model per quarter from a discipline you do not work in and learn it well enough to explain it.
    Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach

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

• I read all these brilliant thinking tools and nod along, and then the moment I’m actually facing a hard problem not one of them comes to mind→
• I trust my favorite framework so completely that I apply it everywhere without checking, and lately it’s been quietly steering me wrong→
• I’m stuck on a decision and I’ve only really looked at it one way, and I’m not sure how much to trust that one read→
• My theory about why this keeps happening has grown so many moving parts that it explains every little quirk perfectly→
• Everything I know how to think with comes from my own field, so every problem ends up looking like the kind of problem I already know how to solve→

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