Coaching practices for Examined Life Practice
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Examined Life Practice, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m living by a whole set of rules about how life should go, and it’s started to dawn on me that I never actually chose most of them
- I say family and health are what matter most to me, but if you looked at where my hours and attention actually went this month you’d never guess it
- My everyday life — the dishes, the walk, the commute — passes in a fog while my mind is somewhere else entirely, and I want to actually be here for the plain, mundane moments instead of sleepwalking through them waiting for the parts that supposedly matter.
- I can think of a few times in my life when I felt genuinely, fully alive, and I want to study what those moments had in common
- On paper I know exactly the kind of person I want to be and what I believe, but when I watch how I actually behaved this week there’s an embarrassing gap between the two, and the knowing clearly hasn’t closed it.
Practices that may help
- The Examined Life
Socrates’ claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38a) means that a life lived without sustained reflection on one’s values, beliefs, and actions is a kind of sleepwalking. The Socratic method — elenchus — is a specific form of examination: honest questioning that surfaces inconsistencies and untested assumptions. As a practice, it overlaps with metacognition and reflective practice, which have genuine evidence bases, though Socrates’ philosophical claim is stronger than any psychological finding. - Conduct a regular examined-life audit
Periodically ask: which of the beliefs I am living by have I actually examined, and which am I just inheriting?
The Socratic Method, Made Practical - Know thyself — map your actual values against your actions
Compare what you say you value with what your behavior reveals you actually value.
The Examined Life - Bring contemplative attention to ordinary moments
Practice full presence in mundane activities as a form of sacred attentiveness.
The Perennial Philosophy, Made Practical - Peak experience analysis
Study your life-line high points for the values and conditions they share — they reveal what fully alive looks like for you.
The Life Line Exercise - Live what you study
Make your practice your philosophy — not a separate reading life and a separate daily life.
Philosophy as a Way of Life - 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. - Practice the Examen daily and briefly
Do a short Examen most days rather than a long one occasionally.
The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review - Philosophy as a Way of Life
Pierre Hadot argued that ancient Greek and Roman philosophy — Stoic, Epicurean, Platonic — was not primarily a system of theories but a set of "spiritual exercises": repeated, structured practices for transforming how you perceive, judge, and live. The academic thesis is Hadot’s own and is well established in classical scholarship. The practices he describes overlap with studied mechanisms in mindfulness, CBT, and behavioral change — though that was not Hadot’s own claim. - Attention to the present moment (prosoche)
Practice "prosoche" — continuous, vigilant attention to what you are actually doing and thinking, right now.
Philosophy as a Way of Life
Related concerns
- The Examined Life When Starting Out
Socrates’ claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38a) means that a life lived without sustained reflection on one’s values, beliefs, and actions is a kind of sleepwalking. The Socratic method — elenchus — is a specific form of examination: honest questioning that surfaces inconsistencies and untested assumptions. As a practice, it overlaps with metacognition and reflective practice, which have genuine evidence bases, though Socrates’ philosophical claim is stronger than any psychological finding.
- The Examined Life With My Team
Socrates’ claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38a) means that a life lived without sustained reflection on one’s values, beliefs, and actions is a kind of sleepwalking. The Socratic method — elenchus — is a specific form of examination: honest questioning that surfaces inconsistencies and untested assumptions. As a practice, it overlaps with metacognition and reflective practice, which have genuine evidence bases, though Socrates’ philosophical claim is stronger than any psychological finding.
- Elenchus Self Examination
Pick one confident belief and interrogate it as Socrates would: What do you mean? How do you know? What would refute it?
Practice elenchus — cross-examine your own beliefs
- Hadot Nightly Examination
Before sleep, review the day in three questions: Where did I go wrong? What did I succeed at? What remains undone?
The Pythagorean evening examination (Hadot’s version)
- How To Examine Your Life
Periodically ask: which of the beliefs I am living by have I actually examined, and which am I just inheriting?
Conduct a regular examined-life audit
- How To Live Philosophically
Pierre Hadot argued that ancient Greek and Roman philosophy — Stoic, Epicurean, Platonic — was not primarily a system of theories but a set of "spiritual exercises": repeated, structured practices for transforming how you perceive, judge, and live. The academic thesis is Hadot’s own and is well established in classical scholarship. The practices he describes overlap with studied mechanisms in mindfulness, CBT, and behavioral change — though that was not Hadot’s own claim.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.