Coaching practices for How to Do the Examen

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

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

• I’ll do this big thorough reflection once, feel great about it, and then not do it again for three weeks
• I’ve got the textbook down but I freeze the moment a real exam-style question asks me to actually apply it
• I keep starting this nightly prayer practice and then dropping it the second life gets busy, because I’ve made it this long involved thing
• 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’ve got an exam or a presentation coming up on something I’ve studied a lot, and I want to find out whether I actually get it

Practices that may help

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Keep it brief and daily
   Do a short Examen most days rather than a long one occasionally.
   The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. Explain it to a complete beginner
   Teach the concept in plain words to someone who knows nothing about it.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
9. The Socratic Method, Made Practical
   The Socratic method is a form of disciplined questioning that exposes unstated assumptions, reveals inconsistencies, and forces more precise thinking. Applied to self-examination, it is one of the oldest and most reliable tools for developing genuine self-knowledge — distinct from introspection, which surfaces what you already believe rather than challenging it.
10. The daily examen (end-of-day review)
    Spend five minutes each evening reviewing where you were most and least true to yourself today.
    Svadhyaya: Self-Study as a Daily Practice

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