Coaching practices for Test Your Principles

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Test Your Principles, 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 this fresh idea I’m genuinely excited about, and that excitement is making me go easy on it
• There’s this thing I’m treating as obviously true and building everything on top of
• I’m standing at a choice where I can feel myself about to take the easy, lesser road, and abstract principles aren’t holding me
• There’s one thing I’m sure about and have built a lot of my life around, and lately I’ve been afraid to actually interrogate it
• I’m about to commit to something that sounds right on its own, but I haven’t traced what it would actually commit me to downstream

Practices that may help

1. Rebuild from fundamentals and stress-test it
   Reassemble a solution from verified parts, then attack it to find where it breaks.
   First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable
2. Use Socratic questioning to test each belief
   Interrogate every claim with “how do I know this is true?” until only bedrock remains.
   First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable
3. Act as if sages were watching — the practice of the philosophical community
   Before any action, ask: would a person I genuinely respect — who embodies the values I aspire to — approve of this?
   Pierre Hadot’s Spiritual Exercises
4. Practice elenchus — cross-examine your own beliefs
   Pick one confident belief and interrogate it as Socrates would: What do you mean? How do you know? What would refute it?
   The Socratic Method, Made Practical
5. Explore the implications and consequences of a position
   Ask "if that is true, what follows?" to test whether accepting a claim creates downstream problems.
   Socratic Questioning
6. Stick to Values: act consistently with what actually matters to you
   Before compromising a position, check whether the compromise conflicts with a core value — and hold if it does.
   FAST: DBT’s Skill for Maintaining Self-Respect in Relationships
7. 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
8. Specify what would falsify your belief before you look at evidence
   Write down what evidence would prove you wrong before you go looking.
   Falsification Thinking
9. Test your updated model in new situations
   Design a small experiment that would confirm or disconfirm the principle you just derived.
   Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle: Learning by Doing and Reflecting
10. Behavioral experiments to test core beliefs in vivo
    Design a real-world action that tests the core belief, then observe what actually happens.
    The Downward Arrow: Uncovering the Core Beliefs Behind Distress

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