The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success

by Dan Sullivan

“To be free, you must be self-determined, which is to say that you must be able to control your own destiny in your own interests.” —Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Being self-determined means that you’ve decided what success means to you, and you don’t need anyone else’s permission for what you want for yourself. You don’t need to apologize for what you want.

Social media is largely designed to put people into the GAP.

HOW TO MEASURE GAINS “You can’t make a real measurement of your gains unless it’s based on numbers achieved or events that have made a difference. It has to be quantifiable and verifiable.”

The American motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said it well: “Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.”

Any form of social comparison puts you in the GAP. Measuring yourself against someone else puts you in the GAP. Competing with someone else puts you in the GAP.

Your happiness as a person is dependent on what you measure yourself against.

As a quick exercise, pull out your journal and answer the following questions: Are the reference points you measure yourself against external or internal? How often do you compare yourself to others? How much time do you spend on social media? Are you self-determined and free?

Define Your “Success Criteria” “What preoccupies us is the way we define success.” —Arianna Huffington15

APPRECIATE PROGRESS FIRST “Before you start the process with a new goal, make sure to recognize and appreciate the progress and achievements you’ve made so far.”

Dean decided to flip the question to put success in the here and now. He asked himself, “I know I’m being successful when . . . ” and came up with a list of 10 items:16 I can wake up every day and ask, “What would I like to do today?” My passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs. I can live anywhere in the world I choose. I’m working on projects that excite me and allow me to do my best work. I can disappear for several months with no effect on my income. There are no whiny people in my life. I wear my watch for curiosity only. I have no time obligations or deadlines. I wear whatever I want all the time. I can quit anytime.

Spend 20 to 30 minutes with no distractions writing down your answer to this question: “I know I’m being successful when . . .” Be as honest with yourself as you possibly can. No one else can define success for you.

Defining your own success criteria is how you become self-determined. This is how you develop an internal reference system. You decide how you will measure yourself. Be flexible with this list.

ELIMINATE JUSTIFICATION “By eliminating justification, you recognize that all the energy you were spending comes back in the form of creativity, innovation, and cooperation.”

Here are Lee’s six filtering questions, which also act as his personal success criteria: Is this opportunity, person, expense, adventure, experience, relationship, commitment, etc., aligned with my values? (If the answer to this first question is “No,” then Lee doesn’t proceed to ask himself the remaining five questions. If, however, the answer to this first question is “Yes,” then he continues his filtering process.) Will this opportunity, etc., take advantage of my unique ability and make me even stronger? Will it lengthen my stride? How will this opportunity, etc., benefit mankind? Is there a bigger cause or purpose that will benefit society? Does this make sense financially? Is this transactional or transformational? In other words, is this a stand-alone opportunity or a gateway opportunity? If I say “Yes” to this opportunity, what then must I say “No” to?

A fundamental aspect of being in the GAIN is to live your life in a self-determined way. You stop living in the GAP and measuring yourself based on ideals, but rather live based on clear measurables that you yourself have chosen.

The philosopher Seneca called it euthymia, which means “That you’re on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.”18

IDEALS AS INSPIRATION “The best way to look at your ideals is as an infinite source of inspiration for creating goals. We are all like moviemakers, using our entire memory and imagination as raw material for casting a never—ending series of pictures out in front of us.”

Use Your Filtering System to Go Further, Faster “Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered. If you’re not saying ‘HELL YEAH!’ about something, say ‘no.’ When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than ‘Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!’—then say ‘no.’” —Derek Sivers

CREATE SUCCESS CRITERIA “The simplest and most efficient way to ensure you get the results you want is to create a list of success criteria for your goals.”

Pull out your journal and simplify the success criteria you’ve listed above. Are your success criteria focused on the outcomes you currently want? What’s a simple filter you can create to assess every decision you make (e.g., “Will it make the boat go faster?”)? What is one thing you can apply this filter to in the next 3 hours?

BE SPECIFIC, NOT VAGUE “Vagueness generates vagueness, so you must be specific when describing your desired results.”

Train Your Brain to See GAINS “Sometimes the greatest scientific breakthroughs happen because someone ignores the prevailing pessimism.” –Nessa Carey, British biologist

Other research shows that unhappy people get sick easier. For instance, one study showed that unhappy employees take, on average, 15 extra sick days per year.

The way you mentally filter experiences shapes your emotional and physical response to those experiences.

Research shows that your interpretation of events, despite their objective characteristics, determines the impact of stress and illness on your body.8,9 The way you interpret an experience literally affects how your body metabolizes that experience. Perception shapes biology.

COMPARISON MAKES YOU UNHAPPY “Comparison makes you unhappy, and there’s no end to comparison in the world, if that’s the path you choose.”

When you change the context, you change the meaning. The meaning determines the psychological and physical impact of the content.

BE UNIQUE, DON’T COMPARE “Instead of focusing on self—comparison, you focus on valuable thinking and action, created through your unique thoughts and experiences.”

Stop Comparing and Practice Gratitude “Comparison is the thief of joy.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Being in the GAP creates scarcity. It also stops you from being grateful and generous.

The GAP robs you of enjoying your life. It robs you of appreciating what you already have. It completely kills the reward of any positive experience you have or progress you make.

As with all things, an obvious antidote to emotional reactivity and an unhealthy need for “fairness” is gratitude. Research shows that people who are grateful don’t overly obsess over “fairness” or comparisons.

Pull out your journal and answer the following questions: When was a time you went into the GAP because you went from wanting something to believing you needed it? When was a time you went into the GAP by comparing yourself to someone else? When was a time you used gratitude to reframe a situation into a GAIN and move forward?

Call Yourself Out and Give Others Permission to Call You Out “Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.” —Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican theologian and human rights activist

MEASURE YOUR OWN PROGRESS “Measuring your own personal progress keeps you out of comparison with others.”

Practice Mental Subtraction “Is there a good way to ‘unadapt’ to positive events? Perhaps thinking about the absence of those positive events would work.” —Minkyung Koo, Sara Algoe, Timothy Wilson, and Daniel Gilbert

Indeed, research shows that imagining the absence of a positive event in your life has a more powerful effect on you than simply looking back on that positive event. Likewise, imagining the absence of an important person in your life can be more powerful than simply appreciating the fact that they are in your life. One study found that mentally subtracting a material possession you’ve previously enjoyed increases your happiness with that item more than simply thinking back on when you purchased it.

Being in the GAIN is appreciating everything in your life, including the progress you’ve made as a person. It’s about measuring yourself against where you were before. It’s about seeing everything in your life as a GAIN.

Let’s take some time to start focusing on the GAINS in your life. Start by mentally subtracting something important to you. Here are the steps: Pull out a piece of paper and a pen. Select one specific thing to mentally subtract: it could be a relationship, an achievement, your health, a possession. Imagine how your life would be if you never had that one thing, or if it was instantly taken away from you forever. Picture the impact that would have on you right now. Think about how losing that one thing would affect your future. How would it affect others? Write down how your life would be different. Now, refocus on the present moment and this one thing in your life that you’ve been focusing on. This one thing is a huge GAIN in your life. How can you appreciate this GAIN more than you have up to this point? How can you turn this GAIN into even more GAINS? How have your thoughts and feelings changed about this one thing by doing this exercise? How do you feel about your life in general right now? Repeat: choose another specific thing, event, possession, achievement, health, or person.

Thankfully, in the real world we don’t literally lose the thing we go into the GAP about. But we do damage it. We damage our own experience. And when it comes to other people, we damage them as well. We all go into the GAP way too much.

“One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.” —Randy Pausch

YOU’RE 100 PERCENT DISCIPLINED “You are 100 percent disciplined to your existing set of habits.”

Decision fatigue happens when you’re not sure what you’re going to do. It’s when you’re torn between options and, due to your indecisiveness, you often cave to the tempting worse option.28 Having a pre-plan in place enables you to be intentional, and to avoid the willpower burnout that comes through decision fatigue.

After I compare myself with another person, I will say to myself, “Are you in the GAP or the GAIN?” After I feel discouraged, I will list 3 specific GAINS from the last 30 days. After someone tells me about a setback, I will say, “What did you GAIN from this experience?” After I start my weekly team meeting, I will ask, “What was your biggest GAIN yesterday?” After I open my journal, I will immediately write about one GAIN in my life. After I __________, I will __________. After I __________, I will __________. After I __________, I will __________.

Increase Your Hope and Resilience “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” —Steve Jobs1

If we’re not progressing as people, then we’re givingup on ourselves. If we don’t believe someone else can make progress, then we’ve given up on them.

YOU’RE ALWAYS GROWING “You are always growing, and you continually measure yourself in terms of growth.”

When you stay in the GAIN, your motivation to push through challenges is not only enabled but strengthened. Being in the GAIN helps you discern the progress that others in the GAP would miss.

Seeing GAINS gives you hope, confidence, and motivation to keep going—even when progress is difficult or slower than desired.