Coaching practices for I'm All in on This Plan and the Success Story in My Head is So Vivid I Can Already Taste it Which is Precisely When I Get Blindsided So Before I Commit I Want to Stand a Year Ahead and Tell the Story of Exactly How it Fell Apart
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I'm All in on This Plan and the Success Story in My Head is So Vivid I Can Already Taste it Which is Precisely When I Get Blindsided So Before I Commit I Want to Stand a Year Ahead and Tell the Story of Exactly How it Fell Apart, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m all in on this plan and the success story in my head is so vivid I can already taste it
- I’m about to commit to this plan and on paper it looks solid, but a quiet part of me suspects I’m too sold on it to see the holes
- I’m about to commit real time and money to this plan, and it looks solid
- I’m excited about this plan and so committed to it that I can’t honestly see what might sink it
- I’m about to commit to this timeline and on paper it all looks fine, but I have a nagging feeling I’m glossing over the ways it could go sideways because admitting them now feels like talking myself out of it before I’ve even started.
Practices that may help
- Run a pre-mortem to interrupt forward narrative construction
Before committing to a plan, imagine it failed completely — then generate the most plausible story of why.
The Narrative Fallacy: Why We Can’t Stop Making Stories - 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 - Run a pre-mortem before committing to a plan
Imagine the plan has already failed and ask what went wrong.
Confirmation Bias: Seeing What You Expect to See - Run a premortem before committing
Imagine the decision has already failed — then ask why.
Thinking in Bets - Run a premortem before committing
Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong - Pre-mortem your personal goals
Apply the technique solo to a habit, project, or life decision.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Run the basic pre-mortem
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Pair the pre-mortem with a clear success vision
Balance failure analysis with an equally concrete picture of what success requires.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Steelman objections to your own plans
Before committing to a plan, state the strongest case against it in its most compelling form.
Steelmanning - Turn top risks into tripwires
Set a specific signal that tells you a feared failure is starting to happen.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed
Related concerns
- When Planning Fallacy Premortem Analysis
Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
Run a premortem before committing
- When Premeditatio Malorum Premortem
Before starting, assume the plan has already failed and ask why — then fix it now.
The premortem (imagine the project already failed)
- When Thinking In Bets Run A Premortem
Imagine the decision has already failed — then ask why.
- The Pre Mortem Imagine It Already Failed On A Budget
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- When Confirmation Bias Pre Mortem For Plans
Imagine the plan has already failed and ask what went wrong.
Run a pre-mortem before committing to a plan
- Find Flaws In Your Plan
Before starting, assume the plan has already failed and ask why — then fix it now.
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