There’s no shame in being wrong, especially if you are willing to be humble and do something about it when you are shown a better way.
That was the realization I came to recently when it finally hit me: I had been measuring success all wrong. And maybe you have been too.
My turning point came during a recent debriefing session with my coach. I had just completed a key project and described a long list of difficulties I had in the process. To be fair, I had faced one technological challenge after another, which resulted in a lot of frustration on my part.
By the time I wrapped up my review, you would think I had learned nothing from the experience, and the entire project was a failure. Instead of the wins, all I saw were the things that had gone wrong.
That is when my coach shared the concept of the ‘gap and the gain’ with me.
“Most people, especially highly ambitious people, are unhappy because of how they measure their progress. We all have an ‘ideal’, a moving target that is always out of reach. When we measure ourselves against that ideal, we’re in ‘the gap’. However, when we measure ourselves against our previous selves, we’re in ‘the gain’.”
– From The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
My mind was blown. There I was thinking I was recapping my recent accomplishments, but really, I was focused on all the mishaps and road bumps. I was measuring my success not by how much I had gained, but by how far I thought I still needed to go. I was in the gap!
Maybe you do this too; you measure success by looking at the gap, and not at the gain.
Not surprisingly, this is a typical way to think. From a very young age we are conditioned to measure ourselves against an external standard or ideal. Entire education systems were built around the notion of an external reference point as a standard for evaluation and comparison.
As we grow and develop, we regularly assess our performance against something or someone else. For high achievers, this is a two-edged sword because not only do we measure ourselves against others, but we also measure ourselves against our own ideals. Talk about a double-whammy! Even when we’re winning, we can’t see it.
This, my friend, is not the way to measure success.
If you want to be confident, successful, and happy you need to focus on the gain.
A BETTER WAY
Of course, after that mind-blowing conversation with my coach, I promptly went in search of the book, The Gap and the Gain, so I could better understand the concept of measuring success by focusing on the gain. I spent the next two days devouring the audiobook and realized my coach was right. The way I measured progress up until this point was twisted at best.
In The Gap and the Gain, I found a better way to measure success and I highly recommend you check it out for yourself. In the meantime, I’ll share three simple things you can do today to focus on the gain and enjoy success.
3 WAYS TO MEASURE SUCCESS AND STAY IN THE GAIN
- MEASURE SUCCESS BACKWARDS
Start by recognizing that ideals are like the horizon. If you look out at the horizon right now, you’ll see it there in the distance, but the closer you try to get to it, you’ll notice it’s always moving. The horizon is meant to guide you, but you will never get there. It’s a moving target, just like your ideals.
When you measure your success by looking forward toward your ideals, you will always fall short, because just like the horizon, your ideals are a moving target. Chances are you will be dissatisfied and unable to appreciate progress because you haven’t reached your ideal target. Measuring success based on where you would ideally like to be, will always put you in the gap.
However, if you measure success by looking backward you will notice how far you’ve come and the progress you have made. Compared to your starting point, you have made a lot of progress and you can now appreciate and celebrate your success. That is the gain!
Notice, the only thing that has changed is the way you look at your progress. You’re either looking backward to see how much progress you’ve made (the gain) or looking forward and feeling like you’ve fallen short (the gap). Train your mind to look backward and focus on the gain.
- COUNT THREE WINS
By now you realize that how you measure success counts! To help you stay in the gain, end your day by recapping your wins from that day. Use the ‘magic hour’ before going to bed to reflect on three wins from your day. They don’t have to be big, fancy, or earth-shattering, just three things you count as progress.
“A win is anything you can measure as being better today than it was yesterday.” – Dan Sullivan
- FORECAST THREE MORE WINS
After counting your three wins for the day, take some time to consider what your three wins will be tomorrow. Resist the temptation to rush too far into the future. Focus instead on just the next 24 hours.
Imagine when you look back on your day tomorrow, what wins will you have accomplished? Choose no more than three, write them down, then go to bed. Allow your brain to do the rest of the work while you sleep. You’ll wake up in the morning energized and ready to go after those three wins.
FIND YOUR WINNING STREAK
Knowing what I know now, I can look back and see all the progress I made while working on my project. Sure, there were some tech issues along the way, but in the big scheme of things, I was actually winning. I was simply measuring success all wrong. I was focused on the gap instead of the gain.
Soon the way you measure success will improve too.
Measuring backwards and counting your wins will give you the confidence to keep moving forward. Your circumstances might not change, but the way you look at them certainly will and before you know it, you’ll be winning all the time.
If you’ve been measuring success like I was, let’s turn this around. Instead of measuring success by how far you still have to go, measure success by how far you’ve come. No more obsessing about where you fell short or didn’t measure up. Measure backwards, account for the lessons learned, and keep moving forward with your eyes on the prize.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Take it a step further and check out these additional resources related to this article:
- Thrive Assessment – get started with a clear picture of your starting point so you can better measure success. It’s free at https://bit.ly/gettothriving
- The Gap and the Gain – read the book by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
