Coaching practices for I Keep Dreaming Up Clever Solutions and They Keep Falling Flat and I'm Starting to Suspect I've Been Solving for What I'd Want Rather Than Ever Really Looking at the Person I'm Supposedly Making This for
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Keep Dreaming Up Clever Solutions and They Keep Falling Flat and I'm Starting to Suspect I've Been Solving for What I'd Want Rather Than Ever Really Looking at the Person I'm Supposedly Making This for, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep dreaming up clever solutions and they keep falling flat, and I’m starting to suspect I’ve been solving for what I’d want rather than ever really looking at the person I’m supposedly making this for.
- I keep planning this thing in my head where it all seems to work perfectly, but the second I try to actually make it I realize I had no idea what I really wanted
- I built the thing I was sure people wanted and it just didn’t land
- I keep brainstorming ways to make this thing succeed and my mind just keeps agreeing with itself
- I’ve been turning this thing over in my head for weeks, planning and re-planning, and I’ve made nothing
Practices that may help
- Lead ideation with deep user empathy
Understand the person you are designing for before generating a single solution.
Creative Confidence, Made Practical - Prototype to think, not to finish
Build or sketch something rough specifically to learn what you actually want.
Quantity Over Quality: How More Drafts Produce Better Work - Empathize — understand the user first
Observe and interview the people you are designing for before forming any solution.
Design Thinking, Step by Step - State the goal, then invert it
Ask "what would guarantee I fail at this?" before asking how to succeed.
Inversion: Solve Problems Backward - Bias toward action over deliberation
Ship a rough version fast to learn what the problem actually is rather than theorizing indefinitely.
Creative Confidence, Made Practical - Iterate the matrix when solutions appear insufficient
If all combinations seem mediocre, the dimensions may be wrong — reframe them before generating more.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Use inversion as the first model in every problem
Before solving a problem, ask what would guarantee failure — then avoid those things.
Mental Models: Charlie Munger’s Latticework Approach - Prototype with conversations and experiences
Test a possible path cheaply — talk to someone living it, or try a small slice — before betting on it.
Designing Your Life, Made Practical - Start from the constraint, not the goal
Define the hardest boundary first, then generate within it — rather than generating freely and pruning to the constraint.
Deliberate Constraints, Made Practical - Generate solutions without premature evaluation
List as many potential solutions as possible before judging any of them.
Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Design Thinking Goals
Design thinking is a five-stage problem-solving framework — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — popularized by IDEO and the Stanford d.school. It is a process model, not a tested intervention: its value comes from forcing you to understand the user before you commit to a solution, and to learn cheaply through prototypes instead of expensive bets.
- Design Thinking Step By Step At Work
Design thinking is a five-stage problem-solving framework — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — popularized by IDEO and the Stanford d.school. It is a process model, not a tested intervention: its value comes from forcing you to understand the user before you commit to a solution, and to learn cheaply through prototypes instead of expensive bets.
- Design Thinking Step By Step When Overwhelmed
Design thinking is a five-stage problem-solving framework — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — popularized by IDEO and the Stanford d.school. It is a process model, not a tested intervention: its value comes from forcing you to understand the user before you commit to a solution, and to learn cheaply through prototypes instead of expensive bets.
- Prototyping Before Planning
Build or sketch something rough specifically to learn what you actually want.
Prototype to think, not to finish
- User Research Before Ideation
Observe and interview the people you are designing for before forming any solution.
Empathize — understand the user first
- When Design Thinking Empathize
Observe and interview the people you are designing for before forming any solution.
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