Spotting your assumptions#

The dangerous assumptions are the ones you never notice you’re making. “I can get through that weather.” “I’ve covered this already.” “I’m just not a numbers person.” None of these arrives announced — they slip past as plain fact. So the first skill isn’t deciding whether an assumption is safe; it’s catching it in the act. This page gives you a simple way to pull your quiet assumptions into the open and put a question mark next to each one.

The idea is older and better evidenced than any branded technique. Cognitive behaviour therapy, one of the most thoroughly tested approaches in all of psychology, is built almost entirely on this move: notice the automatic thought, name it, and gently test it against reality (Beck, 2011). You can borrow that same move for learning and for the everyday calls you make under pressure.

Find the assumptions that matter#

You can’t question everything — that’s the whole point of assumptions, they save you the effort. So go after the ones that bite.

List the assumptions in your field. Below are some that pilots make, grouped loosely. Treat them as a starting point: keep the ones that fit, swap in your own, and add to the list whenever you catch yourself having assumed something that turned out wrong — or read about someone else who did.
Rank them by likelihood and impact. A wrong assumption you make every week, with serious consequences, deserves your attention long before a rare one that costs you little. Work top-down.
Watch for the strong, comfortable ones. The assumptions you’ve never been burned by feel the most like fact, precisely because nothing has challenged them yet. Those are worth a second look.

A pilot’s list might include “the weather ahead will be no worse than the forecast,” “I have enough fuel for a diversion,” or “the runway will be clear.” Yours might be “the source I’m reading is current,” “I understood that because it felt familiar,” or “this exam will test what last year’s did.”

Build a trigger and a question#

A trigger is just a cue that makes a hidden assumption visible at the moment it matters. You’re training yourself to hear the quiet thought and stop.

Tie the assumption to a moment. Picture the realistic scene where you’d think it — easing toward a build-up of cloud, or skimming a chapter that feels familiar. Rehearse noticing the thought there, so the situation itself becomes the cue rather than relying on remembering in the abstract.
Attach a question, not a slogan. When the assumption surfaces, the response is to interrogate it: What am I taking for granted here? What’s the evidence? What if it’s wrong? This is the core CBT move — catching the automatic thought and checking it against the facts rather than swallowing it whole (Beck, 2011). It’s deliberately unglamorous, and that’s why it works.
Then ACT on it. Once you’ve caught and questioned the assumption, run it through the ACT steps — Assumption, Contingency, Test — so a noticed assumption turns into a decision rather than a worry.

Run through this a few times for each high-priority assumption, in a calm moment rather than mid-crisis. You’re laying down the habit so it’s there when you need it.

Back them up with assertions#

Triggers catch assumptions one at a time. Standing assertions work the other way — they set up a baseline expectation that an unsafe assumption now has to contradict, which makes it easier to notice when one does.

Write a couple of positive assertions for each category and add them to your review list. Phrase the truth you want front-of-mind, and fold the act of checking right into it — for example, “The weather is always variable and unpredictable, so I check before I commit.” When a lazy assumption (“it’ll be fine”) bumps against a well-rehearsed assertion (“I check before I commit”), the mismatch itself becomes the alarm.

A note on what I cut#

Earlier versions of this page taught a “swish” technique borrowed from neuro-linguistic programming — mentally swapping a bad image for a good one. I’ve dropped it. When researchers gathered up the controlled trials of NLP, they found no good evidence that its techniques actually work as claimed (Sturt et al., 2012). The useful part survives without the branding: notice the limiting thought, and question it. If a technique you’ve been taught doesn’t hold up under fair testing, that’s worth knowing — see when a technique doesn’t work .

Takeaway#

Pick your three highest-stakes assumptions, write a question for each (“what am I taking for granted, and what’s the evidence?”), and a matching assertion. Rehearse catching them in the moment. You’re not trying to assume less — you’re training yourself to notice the few assumptions that matter and put a question mark where you used to put a full stop.