In this episode, we talk about competing commitments, which are two beliefs that are in direct opposition and can have you feeling like you're driving with your foot on the accelerator while the parking brake is on. Examining these competing commitments can reveal the hidden assumptions that may be holding you back from finding your next step.
For all you visual learners and folks who watch Netflix with the captions on, here are the guiding questions we go over in the episode:
1) What would you like to have happen, so that your work could be more satisfying? Whether it includes staying in teaching, or leaving - think about what you’d want to be true about your work that would make it more fulfilling and better for you as a human. Responses to this question are nearly always couched in a complaint; but complaints can be immensely useful. People tend to complain about the things they care about.
2) What commitments does your complaint imply? This can be a weird question, but it’s a way of flipping the complaint to uncover what matters to you.
3) What are you doing, or not doing, that is keeping your commitment from being more fully realized? If you imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do you detect in yourself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear? By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcome are you committed to preventing?
4) What hidden assumption drives this self-protective instinct that creates the competing commitment? Ask yourself to create the beginning of a sentence by inverting the competing commitment, and then fill in the blank.
5) Test this assumption. Where did the assumption come from? Look for contradictory evidence. Run small experiments, and look at what they tell you.

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