Episode 10: The Gap and the Gain

Doing these 3 things in the "sweet spot" of your day can change your life!

 

You're listening to the Love Tidbits Podcast, where you'll discover a small, tasty, delightful, bite-sized tidbit of love. I'm your host, LeAnn Austin

Hey y'all, welcome to Love Tidbits, episode number ten:  The Gap and the Gain 

I recently read this book called The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan. It is an awesome book with relatable stories and practical tools to try.  Quick summary, so when you're in the Gap, you lose what you have. The Gap makes every experience worse. The Gap makes any form of progress a let down.  Whatever you've done isn't enough because the standard of success keeps moving. 

And then when you're in the Gain, you measure your own progress. You don't compare yourself to anything external. You don't measure yourself against your ideals. When you're in the Gain, you focus on what you actually done.

I've been thinking about this as we've had some air conditioning issues going on in our house, and they've come out a couple of times trying to fix these and had to change a control panel and all of this, assuring us that this would fix the problem, but it didn't fix the problem. And so then there was something else, and I noticed myself going to the Gap; What is wrong with them? Why can't they get this figured out? Why is this happening? And not really learning or appreciating what was going on at all.  

Because when I'm in the Gain about all of this, the weather has been pretty nice, so we didn't need the air or the heat, it hasn't been a problem.  We're home and we can take care of it and get it fixed. So there's lots of things. Some parts are under warranty. So there's lots of things in the Gain when I choose to focus on and learn from that. 

So remember, you're in the Gap every time you measure yourself or your situation against an ideal, and you're in the Gain, when you measure yourself backwards against where you were before.

Every experience can be transformed into a Gain. And you can transform anything into a Gain by creating a new lesson or insights or standards for yourself.  You become better, and your future becomes bigger.  An experience is only valuable and useful once you've transformed it into a Gain.  And remember, everything in life happens FOR you not TO you. 

I love how Dan shares in this book, that success is measured by you. So what if we changed our reference point to be internal, where we measure our own progress, rather than comparing ourselves against something or someone external. 

They give a great example in the book, and they're talking about the British rowing team. Now, apparently the British rowing team had not won a gold medal since 1912, and then something changed.  In anticipation of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the team developed a useful filtering process that changed everything for them. They developed a one question response to every single decision they made. This one question allowed them to measure every situation, every decision, every obstacle, and not to get derailed, like most of us do. With every decision or opportunity each member of the team asks themselves, Will it make the boat go faster?

For example, you get invited to a late night party the night before training and ask, Will it make the boat go faster? If no, the decision is no. The rowing team used this single measure as their decision filter to quickly escalate their unity, their skills, conditioning, and training, and guess who won the gold that year?  The British rowing team won the gold. 

So the more you're in the Gain, the less you compare, you compete, or you even care what other people think about you.  You're playing your own game. You're seeing new progress every day. You're loving you and your life. 

One other quick thing I want to share from the book. So much information, so I highly recommend reading it. The last hour of the day can be a Gain Hour.  One that positively transforms how you sleep, as well as your entire next day. So what you do during that hour before bedtime, Dan calls the "sweet spot" and it's critically important. It sets the tone for your next day. It's where your deepest habits are formed. How you end your day doesn't only determine how well you sleep, it also dictates when you'll wake up. It decides how committed and sold you are on what you'll do and who you'll be the next day. It defines how effective and alert you'll be the next day. Because when you end your day poorly and without a committed plan, you compromise the next 24 hours.

So three things to do. Before you go to bed, that last hour, the Gain Hour, write down three wins from today. Whatever your three wins were, write them down.  Then write down three wins you'd like to accomplish tomorrow. And finally, share your wins.  Share the wins you've done for today. That's it. Those three things, your sweet spot, your Gain Hour before you go to bed.  I've been trying this and it really is helping me create the results that I want. So celebrate your three wins of today, decide and write down what your three wins for tomorrow will be, and share your wins with someone. 

One of my favorite quotes from the book is by Greg McKeown:  "If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain, what you lack." Hmmm, something to think about.  

Have a good one y'all ~ and here's to love and Gain.

If you would like to become an expert at loving yourself, check out my Lovin Me Program at leannaustin.com