The Gap and The Gain describes two ways of thinking that measure your progress in life. Gap-thinking is focusing your thoughts on the “gap” between where you are now and where you want to be. Gain-thinking is focusing on how far you’ve come, or the “gains” you’ve made. According to the authors, both styles of thinking have significant consequences for your well-being: Gap-thinking is detrimental to your happiness, self-esteem, and physical health, whereas Gain-thinking improves these aspects of life.
(Shortform note: Although the authors argue that Gap-thinking damages your well-being, other experts suggest that thinking about the gap between your current self and your ideal future self can motivate you to achieve your goals. Researchers recommend two strategies to ensure that this gap is motivating rather than discouraging. First, make sure your goals are realistic enough that you can achieve them. Second, consider the obstacles that prevent your future from becoming a reality. This will allow you to figure out ways to get around these obstacles.)
Dan Sullivan, an entrepreneurial coach, provides several actionables he’s developed during his career to maintain a Gain-oriented mindset. While Sullivan provides these ideas, organizational psychologist and co-author Benjamin Hardy writes them into the book. Hardy also supplements Sullivan’s ideas with the psychological processes that explain how they operate.
In this guide, we’ll first examine the core traits that define Gap- and Gain-thinking. Then, we’ll describe how each style of thinking impacts your life. Finally, we’ll discuss Sullivan’s techniques for staying in the Gain mindset. Throughout this guide, we’ll focus on expanding the book’s discussions of psychological theories as well as examining empirical research that supports or contradicts the book’s arguments.
Gap-thinking and Gain-thinking are two different ways to interpret your progress or achievements in life, assert the authors. Knowing this, what are some key attributes of these mental frameworks that help you distinguish and understand them? In this section, we’ll elaborate on what Gap-thinking and Gain-thinking are by discussing the direction of comparison and the source of motivation for each.
Comparison is the driving force behind Gap- and Gain-thinking, write the authors. Both mindsets involve comparing your present self to something else as a measurement of your achievements. The direction of comparison is what differentiates these two ways of thinking. Gap-thinking is measuring forward, or using your ideal future self as the object of comparison. Gain-thinking is measuring backward by using your past self instead.
(Shortform note: The authors also mention the practice of comparing yourself to other people—known in psychology as social comparison—which they classify as Gap-thinking. However, social comparison doesn’t fit neatly into this category because it can actually produce positive feelings under the right circumstances. For example, social comparison can motivate you when you focus on the similarities between yourself and a more successful person.)
The authors argue that measuring forward is unhealthy because of hedonic adaptation—a phenomenon in which you achieve your goal only to feel unfulfilled and wanting more. Because of this, you’re constantly updating your goals to be more ambitious, and you’re never satisfied with what you currently have. Instead, you should measure backward, because your past self is objective and immutable. This way, you have a consistent standard upon which to improve.
(Shortform note: Hedonic adaptation is a well-documented phenomenon that limits the amount of happiness you get from a positive event or situation. Fortunately, psychologists have found several techniques you can use to bypass the effects of hedonic adaptation and increase your overall happiness. One method is making time for hobbies—activities during which you enter a “flow” state and lose track of time—because these are pleasurable in and of themselves. Another method is rotating your pleasurable activities so that they always feel new and exciting.)
Another distinguishing feature of Gap- and Gain-thinking is the source of motivation. When you fall into Gap-thinking, external factors motivate you. Your reference point—the standard against which you compare yourself—is an idealized version of yourself based on external standards set by other people. According to the authors, this removes any control you may have over defining what success means, which can leave you feeling helpless and unmotivated.
(Shortform note: The authors argue that to feel successful, you must believe you can control your success. This includes not only your reference point, but also your inherent ability to improve your life situation at all. In The Happiness Advantage, researcher Shawn Achor notes that when you relinquish this control and blame external factors for your lot in life, you eliminate any incentive to try to improve your situation. You may think, “Nothing I do will change anything, so why bother?” Lacking control also means that you don’t take credit for your accomplishments, depriving you of the positive emotions that reinforce success.)
The authors contend that social media exists to create and encourage these external reference points. It’s nearly impossible to scroll through your social media feed without comparing your life to the happy moments and attractive pictures that others choose to share with the world. Since the objects of comparison are almost always people you perceive to be “better” than you, this type of comparison will automatically put you in the Gap mentality.
(Shortform note: As previously mentioned, social comparison can be motivating when you examine the similarities between yourself and someone successful. However, people only present small fragments of the best parts of their lives on social media. These fragments distort our perception of their happiness: We tend to forget that they can struggle just like everyone else, which makes it difficult to relate to them. For this reason, social comparison in the context of social media is almost always detrimental to your mood and self-esteem.)
On the other hand, when you are in the Gain mindset, you are intrinsically motivated, assert the authors. You use your past self as an internal reference point. You are in complete control of what progress looks like because your past self sets the standard of success. According to the self-determination theory of psychology, having this control is crucial to feeling motivated and accomplished. Because Gain-thinking gives you control over how you define success, it helps you become more successful.
(Shortform note: Aside from control, there are two other psychological needs listed in the self-determination theory that play an important role in motivation: competence and connectedness. Gain-thinking can fulfill both needs. For example, thinking about the gains you’ve made in learning a skill can make you feel more competent. And as we’ll discuss in the next section, Gain-thinking is fundamentally optimistic, and optimism has a positive correlation with social support and reciprocity. This can allow you to feel connected with others.)
Now that you know exactly what Gap- and Gain- thinking are, you may be wondering about the impact they have on your life. Hardy and Sullivan state that both Gap- and Gain-thinking have cumulative effects, meaning these effects accumulate and amplify themselves over time. In this section, we’ll explore how these effects manifest in your daily life.
Because your mind is focused on your personal growth, Gain-thinking is an inherently optimistic outlook. The authors reference research that suggests that optimism can prolong and improve the quality of your life, so they conclude that Gain-thinking has therapeutic benefits for your body and mind.
Is Optimism Always Better?
While there is much research supporting the link between optimism and increased well-being, optimism can actually be counterproductive in some situations. For example, if someone lacks the skills necessary to perform a certain task, it isn’t helpful to be optimistic and say to them, “you can do it!” Doing so will only cause them to waste time on something at which they can’t succeed. In addition, extreme optimism is associated with financial impulsivity and other types of poor decision-making.
On the flip side, extreme pessimism is also counterproductive. Fatalistic pessimism assumes that negative events are bound to happen regardless of what you do; in other words, you have no control over these situations. Having this external locus of control—just like when thinking about your success—can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression.
Psychologists suggest that it’s best to find a middle ground between these two extremes by being as realistic as possible. Prepare yourself for unexpected, negative outcomes, but don’t assume they’re inevitable.
According to the authors, while Gain-thinking can prolong and enhance the quality of your life, Gap-thinking does the opposite by creating persistent, long-term stress. It’s normal to experience stress in your day-to-day life, and a moderate amount can actually benefit you by strengthening your body’s reaction to it. However, staying in the Gap mindset consistently can create toxic stress—a chronic form of stress that corrodes your mind and body over time.
(Shortform note: Hardy and Sullivan recommend avoiding Gap-thinking entirely to prevent stress from becoming toxic. Other experts suggest managing stress more proactively by channeling your anxiety into productive behaviors that work against your fears coming true. For example, you may be anxious about the decline of your health as you age. You can channel this anxiety into making healthier choices in the present, such as eating healthy foods and exercising.)
Trauma is the most extreme form of Gap-thinking. According to the authors, trauma occurs when you have a maladaptive belief about a past event that creates dysfunction in your present day-to-day life. For example, imagine that you walked home from a friend’s house late one night, and a group of hockey players beat you up and stole your wallet. You may be so frightened by the event that you avoid every subsequent hockey player you meet. Your dysfunctional belief about the past—that all hockey players are dangerous—affects how you act in your current and future life.
Traumatic memories are incredibly painful, so you tend to avoid thinking about them. This causes your thoughts and feelings regarding the event to be unorganized and confused in your mind. Unorganized memories prohibit growth because you can’t learn from an experience you don’t understand. So rather than focusing on the gains, you focus on your resentment of the fact that it happened at all—you’re stuck in the Gap mentality.
Trauma Goes Beyond Misconception
Even in the field of psychology, trauma doesn’t have a clear-cut, uniform definition. It’s an umbrella term that covers a wide range of symptoms. Psychologists agree that trauma involves having misconceptions about past experiences, as the authors state here. But to understand the weight of trauma—how debilitating it can be—it’s more accurate to think of trauma in terms of the effect it has on your brain and body. The unifying characteristic of all people who experience trauma is their physical and neurological reactions to the traumatic event. These reactions can include nightmares about the event, hypervigilance, insomnia, and flashbacks.
The mental and physical effects of trauma also impact your memories of the event. Traumatic memories are unorganized not only because you avoid thinking about them, but also because your brain doesn’t process them as sequential events with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, these memories come back to you in bits and pieces of sensory information (such as smells or sounds) that trigger a physical response in your body.
Now that we’ve covered what Gap- and Gain-thinking are and how they can affect your well-being, we’ll discuss what you can do to focus on Gains instead of Gaps. In this section, we’ll provide techniques that will help you frame your past and present experiences in a way that promotes Gain-thinking.
There are two steps to overcoming trauma, say the authors. The first step is to organize your thoughts and feelings regarding the traumatic event (in other words, to understand the impact the event has had on you) by actively thinking about it instead of avoiding it. The second step is to transform your memory by thinking about the positive impact the event has had on your life. Think about what you learned from the experience and what about the event you’re grateful for. (For a more detailed explanation of this thought exercise, refer to Chapter 6 of the book for Dan Sullivan’s The Experience Transformer® activity.)
(Shortform note: The Experience Transformer® is an example of a psychological practice known as cognitive reappraisal, or altering your perception of something by viewing it from a different perspective. Cognitive reappraisal is the core principle behind cognitive behavioral therapy, a popular subset of psychotherapy used to treat anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse disorders, and other mental illnesses.)
Hardy and Sullivan believe a healthy outlook on the past will shape how you view the present. Transforming your negative, traumatic memories into positive learning experiences will lead to post-traumatic growth—you’ll not only be resilient to trauma, but you’ll also be better because of it.
(Shortform note: Psychologists measure the positive outcomes of trauma using a tool called the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. With this scale, researchers found that people who experienced traumatic events reported more positive changes in their lives than those who didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary. This reinforces the argument that trauma can strengthen and improve you.)
After you transform your past, be vigilant in the present about staying in the Gain mindset. There are three basic tenets of maintaining Gain-thinking: 1. Practice gratitude, 2. Plan ahead for the future, and 3. Hold yourself accountable.
Gratitude keeps you in the Gain mindset by keeping your mind oriented around what you have instead of what you don’t have. Hardy and Sullivan strongly recommend keeping a journal so you have an objective record of your past self against which you can compare your current self. The authors propose the following two exercises as examples of journaling techniques.
1. Actively contemplate the gains you’ve made over various spans of time (for example, what gains have you made over the past 10 years? Three years? One year? Six months?). Write down these gains so you can see your concrete progress.
2. At the end of each day, write down three gains you’ve made that day (for example, “I walked over 10,000 steps today” or “I cleaned out half of the garage”). This way, you are actively and consistently orienting your mind around your personal growth and achievements, no matter how small.
Gratitude Research
Research in positive psychology strongly supports the link between practicing gratitude and increased well-being. Journaling is the most popular and straightforward method. Studies suggest that keeping a gratitude journal provides a broad range of benefits, including better job performance and improved sleep.
However, some research indicates that the link between gratitude and happiness may not apply to everyone. For example, one study found that this link only existed in participants who had PTSD. Another study involved a group of middle-aged Mormon women. These women were recently divorced and used daily gratitude journaling to process their emotional pain. Results showed the treatment didn’t improve life satisfaction for any of the women.
Mental subtraction is another exercise you can use to increase gratitude, write the authors. Take someone or something in your life that you enjoy and imagine that you did not have that thing or person in your life. Chances are, you will feel a greater appreciation for it once you stop taking it for granted.
(Shortform note: According to psychologists, mental subtraction is an exercise best done in moderation. Taking something for granted—assuming that it’s a stable and permanent aspect of your life—can sometimes be necessary to protect your mental health. For example, taking your own life for granted is an illusion—no life is permanent or guaranteed. But applying mental subtraction to your own life is a universally terrifying concept, and it can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression when done in excess.)
In addition to practicing gratitude, prepare yourself for the future so you can focus on gains and pull yourself out of Gap-thinking as quickly as possible. Hardy and Sullivan recommend making these plans during the last hour before you go to sleep. They argue this is the most important time of the day because what you do during it affects how well you sleep and how you approach and navigate the next day. Use this time to write in your journal. You can start with three gains for that day, as mentioned previously, but also write down three gains you hope to make tomorrow. This will prime your brain to plan for the next day subconsciously as you sleep.
(Shortform note: Researchers are conflicted about what time of day is best for journaling. In the seminal 1992 self-help book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests writing “morning pages,” or three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing that you complete first thing in the morning. She argues this boosts creativity by decluttering your mind of worries and allowing you to start your day fresh.)
You can also create and utilize implementation intentions. These are plans for worst-case scenarios that are likely to put you in the Gap mindset. This way, you’ll feel better equipped to handle negative situations that occur unexpectedly and less likely to fall into Gap-thinking. For example, if you’re trying to quit smoking, an effective implementation intention would be deciding beforehand how you’ll unwind after a stressful day without smoking. This way, you can avoid falling into the Gap mentality of resenting that you can’t smoke and instead focus on gaining healthier coping mechanisms.
Finally, the authors suggest using linked habits, which are another form of precautionary planning created by behavioral scientist BJ Fogg. These consist of adding new, healthy habits into your daily routine by placing them immediately after habits you already have. Planning ahead in this way will help you pull yourself out of the Gap mindset when you inevitably fall into it.
To create linked habits, use the formula “After I X, I will Y.” An example would be, “After I start feeling like I’m failing in life, I will ask myself, ‘am I measuring forward or measuring backward?’”
Creating a Roadmap to Success
Psychologists distinguish implementation intentions from goal intentions. The latter is simply thinking, “I want to achieve Z,” whereas the former is thinking, “When X happens, I will do Y in order to achieve Z.” Implementation intentions are more effective than goal intentions because they explicitly illustrate when and how you can work towards these goals.
Similarly, linking habits together provides concrete steps you can take to attain your goals. One method to accelerate and solidify this process is to celebrate after you complete a new habit. This could involve patting yourself on the back, doing a victory dance, or bowing to an imaginary audience applauding you. Associating positive emotions with new habits will strongly reinforce these habits.
Finally, the authors recommend holding yourself accountable as a means of avoiding Gap-thinking. To get yourself out of Gap-thinking, you must first be self-aware enough to realize that you are there in the first place. Call yourself out as soon as you realize you’re falling into Gap-thinking. Don’t let yourself stay in this mindset for longer than five minutes. Once your time is up, spend the next few minutes mentally transforming the experience into a gain by contemplating what you’ve learned from it. Then, move on.
How to Move On
Psychologist Tara Brach suggests using the meditative practice of Radical Acceptance to “move on” from thinking about negative past experiences. There are two equally necessary steps to this practice: The first is self-awareness. As the authors suggest here, self-awareness is the first step in healing from the past. You should observe your thoughts and emotions rather than trying to avoid them or block them out.
The second step is to have empathy for yourself as you observe these thoughts and feelings. Reacting with judgment puts you in the Gap because you’re fixated on how you don’t measure up to your ideal self. Reacting with compassion expands your ability to think positively about the event, which helps to transform it into a Gain.
Hardy and Sullivan also suggest explaining to those around you what Gap- and Gain-thinking are and then encouraging them to call you out for Gap-thinking. Find someone to be your success partner. Tell this person about the gains you’ve made today and the gains you want to make tomorrow. Reporting your progress to someone else is an effective way to improve and accelerate your performance.
(Shortform note: For accountability to work, you must create significant consequences for your behaviors that don’t align with your goals. These consequences have to be just as (if not more) potent than the benefits you gain from these behaviors. This is why success partners are effective—our desire for respect and approval from other people is a powerful motivator that usually outweighs the benefits of giving in to problematic behaviors.)
Consider how you can shift your Gap-thinking to Gain-thinking using a recent event in your life.
Think about a recent event in your life that put you in the Gap mentality. What were your Gap thoughts? In other words, what was going through your mind as you were stuck in the Gap? What idealized version of your future self were you comparing your present self to?
What did this event teach you about yourself, other people, or the world at large?
How will you use what you’ve learned from this event to act or think differently in the future?
What about this event are you thankful for? Why?