Coaching practices for Examen Resolve Step

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

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

  • I’ve got the textbook down but I freeze the moment a real exam-style question asks me to actually apply it
  • I reflect on my day and feel all these feelings about it, and then tomorrow plays out exactly the same
  • I do these honest reviews of my day and then nothing actually changes tomorrow
  • By the time night comes my whole day has blurred into one undifferentiated "fine" or "rough," and I couldn’t actually tell you what happened in it
  • I read through the solved examples and they all make perfect sense as I go, but then I hit my own problem and realize I can’t actually do any of it

Practices that may help

  1. Solve practice questions before checking the answer
    Work through exam-style questions on material you just studied — and attempt every question before checking.
    Active Recall: The Most Effective Way to Study
  2. Close with a resolve for tomorrow
    End by choosing one concrete intention to carry into the next day.
    The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
  3. The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
    The Examen is a short, structured evening review from the Ignatian tradition: you replay the day with gratitude and honest attention to where you felt drawn toward or away from your values, then carry one resolve into tomorrow. It is a centuries-old contemplative practice; its benefits are best described as mechanistically plausible and widely reported rather than established by controlled trials.
  4. Close with a forward-looking resolve
    Choose one concrete intention to carry into tomorrow before closing the review.
    The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
  5. The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
    The Ignatian Examen is a five-step daily prayer and reflection practice developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola: give thanks, ask for clarity, review the day, face what fell short, and resolve what comes next. As a structured reflection method it is centuries-old and widely practiced; its benefits are supported by the broader research on gratitude, emotional review, and implementation intentions, not by trials of the Examen itself.
  6. Replay the day with honest attention
    Walk back through the day’s events and notice them without rushing to judge.
    The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
  7. Self-explain each step as you work through an example
    Pause after each step in a worked example and explain to yourself, in your own words, why that step was taken.
    The Worked Examples Effect: Learn Faster by Studying Solutions First
  8. Audit which constraints are real and which are assumed
    List every constraint you’re working under, then test each one for whether it is actually fixed.
    Problem Reframing: Solving the Right Problem First
  9. Climb the why–why ladder
    Ask "why is this a problem?" repeatedly to reveal the higher-level goal your current framing may be missing.
    Problem Reframing: Solving the Right Problem First
  10. Build branches that are MECE at every level
    Ensure each set of branches is mutually exclusive (no overlap) and collectively exhaustive (nothing important missing).
    Issue Tree Analysis

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