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Living In The Gap
From the Desk of the Executive Director
There is a voice in my head that keeps score.
It doesn't care how much I accomplished today. It only cares about what I didn't.
It reminds me of the email I forgot to send, the project that isn't finished, the goal I haven't reached, and the version of myself it insists I should already be by now. No matter how productive the day was, it somehow reaches the same conclusion:
You know you're better than this.
I've listened to that voice for as long as I can remember.
As I sit here, several days late writing this article, it's louder than usual.
You had the time. You're being fucking lazy. You should have had this done days ago. You know you're better than this.
Those thoughts don't feel dramatic when they're happening. They don't feel cruel. They don't even feel like self-doubt. They feel practical. Reasonable. Responsible. They feel like accountability. They're the soundtrack that's always pushed me to work harder, expect more, and keep moving. I never really questioned them because I assumed they were helping me become the person I wanted to be.
A couple of weeks ago, I started reading The Gap and the Gain. It took about one page before I realized, It's me.
The premise is simple: we have a tendency to measure ourselves against an ideal instead of against our accomplishments. We compare ourselves to the person we think we should be rather than acknowledging the person we've already become.
Since then, I haven't been able to stop noticing it.
I see it every time an accomplishment quietly changes categories in my mind. There was a time when finishing a project, reaching a goal, building a business, or overcoming something difficult would have felt extraordinary because I hadn't done it yet. Now those same things barely register. They stop feeling like accomplishments and become expectations, and my attention immediately shifts to whatever still isn't finished.
The things I haven't done are vivid. They have names, deadlines, and due dates. I can list them without thinking. The things I have done are somehow blurrier. They fade into the background almost as soon as they happen, as though checking them off a list somehow erased their value instead of proving they mattered.
That's the part that keeps bothering me. It isn't that I have high standards. I don't want to lower them. I like having goals. I like building things. I like improving. None of that feels unhealthy. What feels unhealthy is how quickly I move the goalposts.
I know I'm not alone.
How many of us have achieved things we once desperately wanted, only to decide they no longer counted because we'd already moved on to the next goal? How many of us have worked for years to build a career, a family, a business, or a life we once dreamed about, only to spend our days thinking almost exclusively about what's still missing?
Most of us would never treat someone else this way.
If a friend told me they'd accomplished something they'd worked toward for years, I wouldn't immediately ask them what they planned to do next. I wouldn't tell them it wasn't enough. I wouldn't point out everything they still hadn't done. I'd celebrate with them.
So why is it so difficult to extend ourselves the same grace?
So where does that leave me?
Honestly, I have no idea.
I should probably finish the book before pretending I have any answers. There are exercises I haven't done yet, and I'd like to believe there's more to living in the Gain than simply recognizing I've spent most of my life living in the Gap. But recognizing it feels like a start.
I can't stop thinking about how many people around me are carrying around the same voice. How many friends, coworkers, business owners, parents, or neighbors are quietly dismissing everything they've accomplished because they're too busy measuring themselves against what they haven't.
If that's true, then maybe this isn't just a personal exercise. Maybe it's an invitation to start noticing the accomplishments in the people around us, especially when they can't seem to see them themselves. Maybe before we ask, "What's next?" we spend a little more time recognizing how far we've already come, both in ourselves and in each other.
I don't know how to get myself out of Gap thinking yet. But maybe that's not the only question worth asking.
Maybe we should also be asking how we help the people around us out of it.
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I really appreciate this article. I think so many of us live in the gap without ever realizing it. I love the idea of supporting each other and helping our friends and colleagues see the gain. I think would help make it habit forming and where you can see it in yourself even more clearly as well, because you are applying it so often to others and teaching your brain to look for it.