Revealing competing commitments

...and getting better at the game.

Last weekend, I had Claude read about 100 documents sitting on my computer, trying to figure out which to file and which to throw away.

While I have many “folders” that have been transferred from machine to machine, going all the way back to my first Sony VAIO in 2004, there were miscellaneous writings in my Mac “Documents” folder that I was completely unsure about.

I discovered through Claude’s analysis of those documents that I had forgotten I had a nearly complete manuscript on my computer, written at the height of the pandemic. Despite the “You don’t have to create anything meaningful during this time” clamoring from the interwebs, turns out, I did anyway.

It has been rare for me to have never-before-read material because my MO has historically been to come here, work through something, reach an insight, and then move along. Having a manuscript that hasn’t had human eyes on it before is mad cool.

On this topic, I met with my coach, Ian Maxwell, this week, and we were talking about creating from commitment with regard to the manuscript.

Ian has done a bunch of work in the area of commitment, and I wanted more of his language around it as it will not only benefit me, but also a new client I am working with, who often defaults to logic rather than embracing possibility.

There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve not felt my best simply anchoring to the commitment and letting the universe work out the details. That’s not to say I’m without action— commitment requires massive action all the fucking time. If you think for a moment that you don’t have to take action, you’re out of your mind.

However, your personal action and the arrangement of what happens are both you and not you. There’s the logical path, and the magical path. Commitment is where these intersect.

One of the things Ian brought up to me is that I have a deep, embodied understanding of what it means to create from commitment. I become committed to something, and all of the pieces arrange themselves for that thing to happen.

I wait to see the next piece present itself, and I take the actions necessary to move forward. I anchor to the feeling over anything else, and operate from “it’s already done.”

Something Ian brought up yesterday that was incredibly powerful was that commitment reveals competing commitments.

I’ll give you examples:

If you have a commitment to lose weight/get sexier, but you also don’t want to be noticed or seen, that is a competing commitment. Inevitably, one will beget the other. Which are you more committed to?

If you are committed to being wealthy, but you are also committed to “fairness” and “monetary equality,” that’s a competing commitment.

My big commitment, which I have written down everywhere, is that I will have a New York Times bestseller by the time I am 50. (I’m 40.)

This isn’t a “maybe.” It’s already done.

When I found the manuscript on my computer, I wrote on my socials that if anyone had been secretly fanning over my writing for years and they knew a literary agent who would just love me, feel free to make an intro. I have a list of smaller commitments for 2026 that I wrote during the solstice last year, and securing an agent was one of them.

The universe provided, and someone I know from undergrad reached out. We hadn’t connected in about 20 years, but he went to high school with an agent who is a bit of a BFD. Her area is fiction, and she was never going to be my agent, but she was kind enough to have a meeting and help me move in the right direction.

She gave me a lot of wise advice, told me about the publishing business, and gave me a few names at her agency to reach out to when the manuscript was complete. (She said they’re unlikely to take a partial)

Those of you who have been reading my stuff for a long time know there’s no “one big thing” that leads to any success, but rather a series of seemingly innocuous things.

This meeting was about 20 minutes, but it felt powerful energetically in moving me toward what I’m committed to creating in the world.

Now, for my competing commitment:

The manuscript I wrote was written in the height of a global health crisis in the first epicenter in the United States.

It was also around my first 90 days of sobriety.

I was living alone in 150 square feet without a kitchen in a shut-down city. I had amassed about 25 cans of sardines and thought that would “do it” if we had a proper lockdown.

I didn’t have a career, a network, a business, or a direction.

I was still incredibly angry, upset, and struggling. I was angry with my family, my circumstances, the restaurant business, and peers at the time who were “having a hard time” because the only thing I felt was relief that I wouldn’t have to serve the public when a clearly airborne virus was rampant.

I was also angry that nobody had early clarity on this being an airborne virus.

I did, because weeks prior, when I was still working, I watched the news display outbreaks in Italy, and then went over to “Table 81” to ask them where they were from, only for them to say “Italy.” It made sense in my brain, and I judged people for sanitizing their groceries.

I judged myself for hating them.

I’m one of those humans who can produce massive change in short periods of time by examining where I’m not yet free.

My whole magic life is different now because of that ability.

I realized in my session with Ian that I separate the world into “people who have their shit together” and “people who don’t.”

I certainly did not have my shit together during that time, and I judge that person harshly. I also don’t want anyone to think for a solitary second that I am that way anymore.

It’s fucked up.

My competing commitment is that I want to be seen as someone who “has it together,” and I do, in fact, have it together. I’ve worked hard to have it together.

I don’t struggle with my career or knowing my value in the world.

I not only don’t struggle with sobriety, I don’t even think of it.

I don’t struggle with confusing parasocial internet relationships.

I don’t blame people for things that I clearly created.

I’m not about spiritual bypassing, but I don’t wish to engage the masses and have them come up to me, trying to relate to a past version of myself who is dead.

That’s a competing commitment to “publishing this manuscript.”

Ian said to me that creating from commitment isn’t about getting what you want.

It’s about getting better at playing the game.

The game that I played to get out of all of that suffering, inadequate, struggling shit is the same game I’m playing now, judging the person who was in that inadequate, suffering, struggling shit.

This might sound completely ludicrous to you, but this is the work we do as coaches. We examine the energetic blocks that keep you from being expansive.

I could lie and say I don’t judge my former self for not having her shit together, but you can’t lie to The Universe/God/Source/whatever you call it. That functions on frequency, so whatever the stronger frequency is, that is what will be created.

So… I, as always, have work to do.

Stay beautiful

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PS: Sometimes, readers will leave me comments of encouragement.

I want to let you know that while I appreciate you, those comments are less useful to me than ones where you examine your own competing commitments.