Coaching practices for I'm So Locked Onto My Plan That I Have a Feeling I'm Walking Right Past Doors That Could Be Better Than What I'm Chasing the Tunnel Vision is So Tight I Can Only See the One Route I Already Decided on
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I'm So Locked Onto My Plan That I Have a Feeling I'm Walking Right Past Doors That Could Be Better Than What I'm Chasing the Tunnel Vision is So Tight I Can Only See the One Route I Already Decided on, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m so locked onto my plan that I have a feeling I’m walking right past doors that could be better than what I’m chasing
- I get so locked onto the one number I’m chasing that I start cutting corners and let everything around it slide
- I’ve pinned myself to this exact target
- I had exactly one plan for getting where I want to go, it hit a wall, and now I’m completely stuck
- Every single step felt like no big deal at the time, and somehow I look up and I’m boxed in
Practices that may help
- Practise opportunity awareness: stay open to unplanned paths
Fixed goals create attentional blindness to lateral opportunities that might be better than the original destination.
Goal-Free Living: When Process Beats Destination - Guard against goal-induced tunnel vision on the stretch target
Intense focus on a specific stretch metric can produce unethical shortcuts or costly neglect of adjacent areas.
Stretch Goals: When Ambitious Targets Help and When They Backfire - Replace specific goals with a guiding direction
A compass bearing keeps you moving without closing off the exact route or destination.
Goal-Free Living: When Process Beats Destination - Generate multiple routes to the goal
Map at least two viable pathways before starting — obstacles block single-path thinkers cold.
Hope Theory: Agency, Pathways, and Getting Unstuck - Watch for one-way door creep
Recognize when a series of small reversible decisions has created an irreversible position.
The Two-Way Door - Draft three genuinely different five-year plans
Sketch three distinct five-year lives — not variations on the same theme, but genuinely different directions.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - The premortem (imagine the project already failed)
Before starting, assume the plan has already failed and ask why — then fix it now.
Premeditatio Malorum, in Depth - Invoke the outside view before committing to any significant plan
Before finalizing a plan or forecast, ask "How did similar things go?" as the first checkpoint.
The Outside View - Set multiple reserve-clause intentions toward the same goal
Pursue a goal through several simultaneous pathways — each with its own reserve clause — so no single obstacle is fatal.
The Stoic Reserve Clause - Test your action plan for specificity before relying on it
Before counting on a plan, check that a stranger could execute it from your written description — if not, it is not specific enough.
Action Planning
Related concerns
- When Stoic Reserve Clause Multiple Reserve Intentions
Pursue a goal through several simultaneous pathways — each with its own reserve clause — so no single obstacle is fatal.
Set multiple reserve-clause intentions toward the same goal
- When Goal Free Living Replace Goals With Direction
A compass bearing keeps you moving without closing off the exact route or destination.
Replace specific goals with a guiding direction
- When Hope Theory Generate Multiple Pathways
Map at least two viable pathways before starting — obstacles block single-path thinkers cold.
Generate multiple routes to the goal
- When Hope Theory Reframe Stalled Goals
When a specific pathway fails, distinguish between the path failing and the goal being impossible.
Reframe stalled goals as redirections, not failures
- Focus On One Path
Fixed goals create attentional blindness to lateral opportunities that might be better than the original destination.
Practise opportunity awareness: stay open to unplanned paths
- Goal Horizon Planning
Fixed goals create attentional blindness to lateral opportunities that might be better than the original destination.
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