The Gap and the Gain
Measure yourself backward against your past self, not forward against a moving ideal.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 95%
Benjamin Hardy, drawing on Dan Sullivan's work, explains that we feel happy or sad based on how we measure ourselves. Being in the Gap means measuring yourself against your ideals, which are like a desert horizon that keeps receding as you advance, so you never feel progress and devalue everything you've achieved. The Gain means measuring backward against your past self, where you're always further ahead, and turning every experience, even trauma, into growth. Ideals are useful as a direction tool but ruinous as a measurement tool. Hitting or missing a goal doesn't matter if you stay in the Gap because the target keeps moving.
Origin
Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist, learned this from Dan Sullivan's book and co-wrote The Gap and the Gain with him. He came to it after a deep months-long depression when his 2018 book failed to hit the New York Times bestseller list despite being a monumental achievement.
Core principles
- 01Happiness depends on how you measure yourself and your experiences.
- 02The Gap is measuring yourself against an ever-moving ideal you can never reach.
- 03The Gain is measuring yourself backward against where you were before.
- 04Ideals are a direction tool, not a measurement tool.
- 05Turn everything that happens to you into something that happens for you.
How to run it
- 1
Recognize when you're in the Gap
Notice when you're measuring yourself against an ideal or against other people, which always leaves you feeling behind.
Pro tip Ideals are your view of perfection, and by definition unreachable.
Watch out Even hitting your goal won't satisfy you in the Gap because you'll immediately move the target.
- 2
Measure yourself backward
Benchmark your current self against where you were before, using concrete past accomplishments as evidence.
Pro tip Use last year's tangible results as this year's baseline for what to attempt.
- 3
Turn happenings into gains
Transform every experience, even setbacks and traumas, into a lesson or gain so you're always getting better.
Pro tip Psychologists call learning and growing from trauma post-traumatic growth.
- 4
Keep ideals as direction, not measurement
Let ideals point the way forward while you measure progress only against your past self.
Pro tip Become intrinsically motivated toward your own goals rather than externally-fed ones.
In the wild
After landing a multi-six-figure book deal and living his dream, Hardy fell into a deep four-to-five-month depression because the 2018 book didn't hit the New York Times list, the ideal he had built up in his head.
→ He realized he was in the Gap, measuring a monumental achievement against a moving ideal, and learned to measure backward against his past self instead.
Rather than measuring his 2023 against intangible ideals, Hardy uses what he concretely accomplished in 2022 as his benchmark and springboard.
→ The tangible past baseline both propels him forward and lets him set bigger, more exciting goals.
Common mistakes
Measuring against ideals or other people
Comparing yourself to an ever-receding ideal or to other people means you never feel you've made progress, no matter how far you've come.
Believing hitting the goal will fix it
In the Gap, even reaching the goal disappoints because you instantly move the target to something further out.
Is it for you?
Best for
High achievers and ambitious creators who never feel their progress is enough.
Not ideal for
People who use backward-measurement to become complacent and stop setting new goals.
From the transcript
“when you're in the Gap you're measuring yourself against your ideals which are always changing always moving”
“ideals are beautiful they're just not useful as a measurement tool they're useful as a direction tool”
“turning everything that happens to you into something that happens for you”
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