Make a promise to your future self.

You open the fridge and brush your hand against a fuzzy blue-green ball tucked behind the yogurt. Ugh, was that once a lemon? Your phone buzzes—your mother is calling. Meanwhile, the recycling bin needs to go out to the curb before the truck arrives.

These immediate demands feel urgent. Writing your book does not.

When you have already made a creative commitment in your life, the effect of immediacy changes for you. The pressing tasks are still there. But because you’ve made a decision about time, you’ve shifted your gaze from short-term events and you're oriented to what’s further ahead on your timeline. You’re curious about what you can do now to get yourself there.

Creative curiosity breaks patterns.

When you commit to writing a book, you deliberately interrupt the pattern of your now. You invest your time, energy, and money into something that doesn’t yet exist—something that won’t provide immediate gratification.

Most people attend primarily to short-term interests, continuing the pattern of what’s happening right now. But writers make different choices. We shift our attention toward the future to create something that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

Writing a book is inconvenient.

And the inconvenience of writing is a feature of the commitment you’ve made.

It’s a promise you’ve made to your future self about time.

Writing requires you to change how you view the timeline of your life. Your book won’t feel urgent compared to things that matter right now. 

A commitment connects you to your future self—the person you’ll become after finishing your book.

Yes, promising who you’ll be in the future feels strange. The future isn’t here yet! It’s still unknown. This discomfort is natural, because creative writing is about change, and change feels uncomfortable.

But your commitment gives meaning to your present actions. It transforms a fantasy about writing into your future reality.

When short-term demands feel overwhelming, lift your head from immediate goals and look toward the long-term creative change you’re making.

We can’t control everything, but we can direct where we put our attention and action. Focus on your commitment rather than immediate concerns, and those daily urgencies don’t feel as important. The fuzzy lemon can wait.

Photo credit (top): Andrew Petrov on Unsplash.