How to Close the Gap

Are you constantly making progress, and happy about life? Or are you in "the gap"?

 I read a book recently that I thought you might enjoy hearing more about. If you are operating within a negative motivation cycle, not making the progress you need to make, and unable to happy about any progress you make, then you need to hear this. You may also be making lots of progress every day, but still be unable to be happy about your progress, feeling like you always come up short (that's the gap). You can't fully appreciate your progress or be present in life to create more progress and enjoyment, until you learn to measure your accomplishments based on the progress you've made, and not how much you think you come up short. It's time to close the gap, my friend. 

The Gap by Dan Sullivan

Book Report by Tink

The Gap by Dan Sullivan is a little book with a big concept to offer us.  Many entrepreneurs accomplish great things in their life and are never able to feel happy about themselves or their progress. The way they view their progress, and how they measure it, will determine the happiness they allow themselves to experience. The Gap by Dan Sullivan outlines this thinking trap that many of us fall into, and offers an alternate way of thinking that will allow us to finally feel happy about our progress. When we are happy about our progress we are motivated to do more!

So, what is “the Gap”?

The gap is the distance between what we actually accomplished and our ideals. It’s where we feel we’ve fallen short.

What is “thinking in the Gap”?

Measuring your accomplishments based on the ideal, and not what you’ve actually accomplished. Measuring how short you come up and not how far you’ve come.

What are ideals? What does that look like?

An ideal is a mental construct, similar to the horizon. I can see it in my mind; I can fathom it. It’s a great goal to have, but I can’t actually get there.

What are ideals good for?

Ideals are good to help us set goals. They motivate us. They help us achieve more as long as we keep in mind that they are generally unachievable (within the time frame we imagine).

Strategies for getting out of the Gap:

 Increase your clarity and commitment to lifetime ideals that are larger than you.

a.     Take a day off from everything and get clarity

b.     Make sure your ideals are centered around the impact you want to have on others; not what you want for yourself

Increase your ability to establish and achieve goals- and to acknowledge and celebrate progress.

a.     Write goals down

b.     Be specific

c.      Use the ideal as motivation

Increase your ability to “be present” on a daily basis in all life situations.

a.     Get out of the guilt of the past

b.     Get out of the fear of failure for the future

c.      Stop thinking that “real life” lies ahead- live now. Add value now.

d.     Enjoy the present. Enjoy each experience as it happens.

 Increase the integration of all aspects of both your personal and professional life

a.     Avoid isolation by living a life of transparency and integrity

b.     Stop compartmentalizing- be genuine

c.      Add value to all situations- personal and business

Increase your ability to create value in all life situations. Provide:

a.     Leadership

b.     Relationships

c.      Creativity

Increase your personal and organizational referrability

a.     Show up on time

b.     Do what you say

c.      Finish what you start

d.     Say please and thank you.

 Increase your ability to transform all obstacles into creative solutions

a.     After you see an ideal and set a goal, obstacles bubble up

b.     Obstacles are raw materials for creative solutions- this is where we can add value. This is HOW to achieve the goal.

 Increase your ability to differentiate yourself- both personally and organizationally.

a.     Focus on self differentiation rather than self improvement.

. Increase your ability to be autonomous of bureaucratic values, conflicts, and dependencies.

a.     Bureaucratic thinking- human beings are non learning and not creative. Unthinking machinery. After time working in this system, a person may take on these values and be less creative and work less to add value to the lives of others.

There are two types of thinkers in the world when it comes to how we view ourselves and what we’ve done.

Type A: Compares actual #2 to ideals, and when actual accomplishments do not meet ideals (they never can), they have an immediate sense of failure. This is  a constant negative cycle as we can never achieve ideals.

Type B: Compares actual #2 to actual #1, and sees progress. This is a constant positive cycle and requires clarity of accomplishment.

I struggle with thinking in the gap, and I was raised that way. Oh, yes, I know how to relish an accomplishment, for about 5 seconds, and then it's on to the next accomplishment and the anxiety that creates. However,  the past few weeks I have incorporated the weekly planner to help me keep track of my weekly accomplishments. Keeping track of weekly accomplishments has been the most helpful tool I have found to keep me out of the gap and happy with my progress.  Having more clarity about how far I’ve come, and what I accomplished is great for me. Although I may not have accomplished everything on my list; I’m generally happy to see the progress that I did make. This motivates me to get more done the next week. If I don’t keep track of my accomplishments I can quickly fall back in the gap as I tend to have high ideals for myself and others, so I plan to keep being purposeful with this tool.

We can apply this thinking tool to may areas of life. We can keep track of parental accomplishments, progressional development accomplishments, accomplishments as a married couple, and personal accomplishments. Any goal we set in any area of our life should have a corresponding tracking tool along side it where we keep track of progress and help keep ourself aware of how far we've come. We often can go so far in a day that we just forget how far we went, but that's how we can get into the gap. 

Tink's bottom line: Set worthy goals, pray about them, keep track of your awesome progress, and give God the glory. You WILL live a happier life. 

Happy for your progress (As always), 

Tink