The Gap and the Gain

Key idea 1

Be responsible for your own pleasure.

One of the top speed skaters in the world is Dan Jansen. He competed in the Winter Olympics in 1984 at the age of only 16, and he came close to winning a medal. Not quite, but close.

He was dogged by misfortune for the next 10 protracted years. Despite his talent, he was unable to win an Olympic gold medal. At Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, Jansen intended to give it one more go, but he struggled in the races that were typically his best.

Eventually, the 1,000-meter sprint was the last remaining competition. Jansen was aware of how remote his prospects of success were.

Yet he approached this situation with a fresh attitude rather than being depressed over another impending failure. He considered all he had earned over his career as he took his place at the starting line, including the instructors who had so graciously guided him, the locations he had visited, and the immense happiness he had from skating.

The main point is to own responsibility for your own pleasure.

Jansen made the decision to devote his last race to expressing his thanks to the speed skating community. This was to serve as his farewell to a long and fruitful career.

He then started to race while grinning broadly. And this ended up being his finest run in his whole career. In addition to winning the event, Jansen also set a new world record. His optimistic ideas produced an optimistic outcome.

Many successful people find it difficult to adopt this style of thinking. They think that the only way to get motivated is to make themselves unhappy. They believe that if you are too content with your life, you won’t be motivated to achieve. Yet it isn’t at all the case.

In reality, as multiple studies have shown, you really perform better when you are in a happy state of mind. You grow more self-assured, more inventive in your thinking, and more adept at adjusting with the times.

On the other hand, when you’re anxious and depressed, you enter survival mode. Any innovative, lateral thinking is killed out by this. Also, you cease to enjoying yourself at work, which lowers your motivation from inside.

Since he gave up the urge to win in order to be content or successful, Jansen became so successful. He wanted to win, of course. Yet his joy became ingrained in him.

You give up all of your control if you search for happiness elsewhere. The relentless hustle to get the things you think you need turns life into a treadmill. Yet in order to be happy, you don’t need anything or anybody else. By developing an appreciation for your life as it is, you may make a conscious decision to be happy right now.

Key idea 2

Never evaluate yourself against others.

Have you ever been so envious of a friend’s trip to Thailand or your cousin’s lavish wedding that you looked through Instagram?

Then you are doing just how Facebook and Instagram’s developers would want you to. Social media is intended to encourage frequent comparisons between users. Its goal is to instill FOMO, or the fear of missing out on all the things you assume other people do.

In actuality, these platforms are designed to give you the impression that your life is insufficient. It is their responsibility to make you feel as if your life falls short of the ideal and to place you in the GAP.

Why do social media platforms act that way? But if you feel like you’re falling behind, you’ll probably start purchasing things to make up for it. In other words, social media sites play with your mental health to increase your worth as a customer.

Keep in mind that avoiding comparing yourself to others will lead you to a happier life.

Comparing oneself to other people is pointless, the fact is. It makes you desiring material possessions that serve as markers of achievement, such as a large home or an expensive automobile. But, no purchase, regardless of price, will really nourish you.

Only achieving your own, internal level of success will allow you to feel content and contented.

What is this standard, though? You’re not the only one who doesn’t have a quick response. An informed prediction would be: Most likely, neither your parents nor your instructors ever asked you what you valued while you were in school. Nobody was interested in learning your own success criteria.

The emphasis was almost definitely on something else, like passing those examinations or winning that soccer match.

You have the exceptional chance to develop your independence as an adult. You get to choose what matters most to you.

Make a list of the top 10 factors that you notice when you’re succeeding after giving it some thought. Keep in mind that your list will be unique from everyone else’s. And it is the main goal.

Does being able to spend enough time with your family fit into your definition of success? Or is it the freedom to go whenever you please? Make sure your list contains as many particular items as you can.

The next time a new job or other opportunity presents itself, consider if it satisfies the criteria on your list. No matter how renowned the opportunity may be, if the response is no, it doesn’t worth it.

Key idea 3

Your worldview affects the way you live.

Here’s something you may not be aware of. Your physical health and even your lifespan may be impacted by your thinking.

One research used a unique cohort—nuns—to demonstrate this. 180 prospective sisters sent entrance letters to their future monasteries while they were all still young girls.

And guess what? There was a clear correlation between the nuns’ lifespans and the tone of these letters. The average lifespan of nuns who wrote letters that were positive was 10 years longer than those who wrote letters that were negative.

Unlike the nuns in the other group, 90% of the positive group lived to be at least 85 years old.

People’s later lives were significantly impacted by how they characterised their experiences in their 20s.

The main takeaway is that how you see your life influences how you live.

It is commonly known that the mind and body are interconnected. Those who are unhappy miss more work and have lower viral resistance. On the other hand, people with a positive outlook may enhance their health without making any adjustments to their behaviour.

One research, for instance, included 84 women who worked as hotel room cleaners. The group’s other half was informed that the cleaning tasks they were doing were healthy forms of exercise. The control group, which made up the other half, received no information at all.

Following four weeks, the group that had heard the encouraging message reduced their blood pressure and lost weight. Nobody else saw any improvement.

You’re living in the GAP if you have a pessimistic outlook on your life. You start to judge yourself and believe your life isn’t good enough. Your body will be impacted by this. You become perpetually agitated, stressed, and nervous as a result.

The impacts of GAP thinking over a long period of time will exhaust and overburden your system.

Yet, there is a different way to live than in the GAP, and that is in the GAIN. To do this, you must recognize your own growth and value each event you have ever had. This optimistic perspective on life will make you happier and healthier.

So how exactly can you begin to live in the GAIN? Indeed, practice makes perfect.

Begin by asking trustworthy individuals in your immediate area to serve as accountability partners. Their responsibility is to alert you when your thinking has returned to GAP thinking.

Also, you should practice having a GAIN attitude. You may do this, for instance, by making a list of your accomplishments to date or by considering all the lessons you’ve learned from a challenging circumstance.

A GAIN viewpoint will eventually become as commonplace as the GAP was in the past.

Key idea 4

Don’t forget to monitor your development and recognise your successes.

Rosie is a little kid who suffers from the terrible brain condition lissencephaly. Her parents were informed by doctors that she would never acquire new talents.

Rosie has proven them wrong, however, owing to many hours of practise with her committed physical therapist. She mastered walking on grass and other uneven surfaces in only one year. She’s gotten so certain, in fact, that nobody even remembers there was an issue.

Rosie’s therapist takes thorough records and arranges frequent progress calls with her parents as a result of this shift. Her accomplishments are consciously celebrated, which inspires everyone to keep going.

The main takeaway from this is to remember to monitor your progress and recognise your successes.

Your extraordinary accomplishments are simple to overlook since they quickly become commonplace. The human brain is really programmed to forget. Your brain enables you to utilise a new ability on autopilot once you’ve learned it. You don’t even realise you’re doing anything new all too frequently.

Because of this, keeping thorough records on your progress is crucial. You may write down difficulties you face and how you overcome them in your journal. You can see how far you’ve come by reading through your journal.

Many individuals make the error of gauging their success against an imagined future ideal. Yet that will only lead to disappointment. The future isn’t real because it hasn’t occurred yet. But it’s the past. To really appreciate how far you’ve come, compare your current results to previous ones.

Think back to where you were in life 10 years ago for a minute. How did you pass the time? What did you consider to be crucial? What has transpired throughout those years?

Write a thorough, explicit list of all the things you managed to do within that period. Don’t only concentrate on improvements in social standing or monetary prosperity; additionally consider how your thinking has changed. Were there challenging or unpleasant experiences that gave you insightful lessons? What did they teach you?

Repeat the activity again, looking at your advancements over the previous three years and even the last 90 days. By deliberately engaging in this practice, you’ll gain confidence and drive.

You’ll also have a clearer idea of where you want to go as a result.

Key idea 5

Celebrate your victories and make plans for future accomplishments during the final hour of the day.

Maybe to your surprise, the hour before bed is the one most crucial of the whole day. Your choices at that time have an effect on your ability to sleep and on how productive you are going to be the following day. But, the majority of individuals waste those 60 minutes by mindlessly browsing through their devices.

It is commonly known that cellphones excite the brain excessively at night, which makes it difficult to fall asleep. Hence, if you use your phone before going to bed, you’ll probably wake up agitated and sleepy.

It’s not all terrible news, either. You may convert that hour before bed into a potent chance to influence how you sleep and improve your day planning by making just a few little adjustments.

Here, the main point is: Celebrate your victories and make plans for future accomplishments during the final hour of the day.

The first step is to put your phone away at least 30 minutes before going to bed. Instead, sit down with a pen and some paper to think back on your recent day.

Consider and record three specific victories from the day. Keep in mind that these are your own victories, not theirs. Washing a load of laundry is a victory if doing laundry is often a challenge for you.

Choose three victories you aim to attain tomorrow after listing your accomplishments.

Your days and nights will change as a result of this simple exercise. Keeping track of your daily victories helps you adopt a Winning attitude and increases your feeling of confidence and wellbeing. This promotes deeper, more restful sleep.

You may wake up with a sense of purpose by outlining your objectives for the next day in detail so that your brain can begin processing them. You’ll have a precise, workable strategy in place of just reacting to whatever comes your way.

Your mind will become more alert to GAINs throughout the day as a result of this exercise. Everyone is capable of selective attention, which enables them to ignore the majority of external stimuli in favour of what is significant, fascinating, or pertinent.

So why not capitalise on this quality? Your brain will naturally begin searching for more and more accomplishments if you can train it to concentrate on the three victories. Your self-assurance will grow as a result, and you’ll have more energy to keep pursuing your goals. If you persevere, eventually getting out of bed won’t be difficult. Instead, you’ll be excited to begin your day and prepared for the major victories.

Key idea 6

Turn any negative outcome to positive by rephrasing anything that occurred to you during the day.

Howard Getson’s life was transformed on September 29, 2008. He suffered a $2 million stock market loss over night. Getson felt uneasy. It seemed as if his trading had entirely gotten out of hand.

But he later gave it some more thinking. Indeed, that day had been a tremendous loss for him. Not everyone had, however. On the other hand, several traders had overnighted made large sums.

Why did their tactics succeed where his failed? What may he pick up from them?

Getson continued to think about this throughout the night, and in the morning his perspective had entirely changed. He no longer felt depressed about his loss but instead viewed this as an opportunity to grow.

The software being created by Getson’s developers uses AI to react to shifting market circumstances. Getson’s loss of $2 million could have followed him throughout his life. But he prevented it from happening.

The main takeaway from this is that by rephrasing your experience, you can convert any apparently negative event into a Positive.

Getson had shown a quality known as psychological flexibility. It involves having the emotional control to actively shape the significance of your experiences.

Being psychologically adaptable is what enables you to recover quickly from a setback. When things don’t go according to plan, you accept what occurred and find innovative, new methods to accomplish your objective rather than getting trapped.

While not everyone is born with psychological flexibility, everyone has the potential to acquire it. Taking responsibility for everything that occurs to you, whether good and terrible, is the first step on this path. You have no power over anything in your environment. But, you have a choice in how you react to it.

Dan Sullivan, one of the coauthors, developed a potent exercise in his coaching business that he called The Experience Transformers. It’s a mental exercise that enables you to reinterpret your experiences.

Here is how it works: Take up a pen and paper and respond to the following inquiries: What did this experience teach you that you could use in the future? What would you want to change for the future? What else are you thankful for?

Instead of trying to escape the event, exercising allows you time to think about it. Also, it gives you the freedom to write your own account of what transpired. You’ll be able to confront the world squarely and decide what lessons you want to learn from it.

This perspective enables each encounter to be a BENEFIT.

Final Overview

The main idea of this   little book is:

Nobody has to look for happiness. You have the option to choose happiness today. Establish your own internal standards for success rather than evaluating yourself against those of others. A future ideal cannot be used to gauge your development since it is always unreal. As an alternative, compare your present to your history. And rejoice in your tremendous accomplishments. You’ll feel energized and motivated when you consider in terms of gain. Even though it may not come easily, you can practice it by doing easy exercises.

Practical suggestions:

Five minutes should be allotted for the GAP.

When things don’t go your way in life, it’s natural to feel depressed or disappointed. You shouldn’t anticipate that simply because you’ve learned the power of positive thinking, you’ll become instantly and always joyful. Instead, give yourself five minutes to cry uncontrollably, pout, and beat yourself up. Use those five minutes to really embrace the GAP, in other words. Next, intentionally switch to GAIN thinking by considering how you’ve profited from the event and how much progress you’ve achieved.