Coaching practices for How to Evaluate Opportunities
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Evaluate Opportunities, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- A shiny opportunity lands and I get so dazzled by the upside that I talk myself right past the one thing about it I know I’ll hate
- There’s a chance in front of me where the worst case is small and survivable
- The instant a workable idea surfaces I grab it and we stop looking
- The moment the person I’m coaching names a couple of ideas, I jump in with "have you considered" and basically hand them my answer
- This opportunity feels like such an obvious yes that I’m ready to dive straight in
Practices that may help
- Use anti-goals as a decision filter before evaluating opportunities
Run every major opportunity through your anti-goals list before calculating the upside.
Anti-Goals: Defining Success by What You Refuse to Accept - Look for decisions with asymmetric upside — large potential gain, small defined loss
Seek situations where the worst case is bounded and small while the best case is large and open-ended.
Expected Value Thinking: Deciding Under Uncertainty - Generate Options — explore the full range of possibilities before committing
Invite the person to generate as many options as possible before evaluating any of them.
The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People - Generate Options before evaluating any
Brainstorm all possible paths before judging — then the coachee, not the coach, narrows them.
The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical - Apply extra scrutiny when a choice feels obviously good
Positive affect is as reliable a bias-trigger as fear — audit opportunities that feel like obvious wins.
The Affect Heuristic — When Feelings Substitute for Facts - Ruthlessly prune commitments outside the intersection
Once the intersection is visible, say no to opportunities — even good ones — that fall outside it.
The Hedgehog Concept - Rate each plan on confidence, interest, and coherence
Score each plan on whether you find it engaging, whether you could execute it, and whether it fits who you are.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Ideate — generate options before judging
Produce many candidate solutions, deferring evaluation until you have quantity.
Design Thinking, Step by Step - Always name the specific thing you are giving up
When you say yes to something, say explicitly what you are saying no to.
Opportunity Cost Thinking: What You Give Up When You Choose - Map your three circles honestly
Separately answer each circle — passion, best-at, economic engine — before looking for the intersection.
The Hedgehog Concept
Related concerns
- How To Evaluate Good Opportunities
Run every major opportunity through your anti-goals list before calculating the upside.
Use anti-goals as a decision filter before evaluating opportunities
- Downside Risk Analysis
Seek situations where the worst case is bounded and small while the best case is large and open-ended.
Look for decisions with asymmetric upside — large potential gain, small defined loss
- Generate Options Before Evaluating
Write down what a good outcome actually requires before options are visible.
Elicit your real standards before you look
- How To Say No To Good Opportunities
When you say yes to something, say explicitly what you are saying no to.
Always name the specific thing you are giving up
- Low Downside High Upside Decisions
Seek situations where the worst case is bounded and small while the best case is large and open-ended.
- Opportunity Awareness
Opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative you forgo when you make a choice — the hidden price of every decision. Economics treats it as a fundamental concept; behavioral research confirms that people routinely ignore it, leading to predictable patterns of wasted resources. Making opportunity cost explicit is one of the highest-leverage thinking habits you can develop.
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