PDF Summary:The Gap and The Gain, by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan

When you compare who you are now to who you want to be, you’re resigning yourself to a life of unhappiness. Your ideal self is constantly changing, making your goals impossible to reach. Instead, you must compare who you are now to who you used to be so that you can see how far you’ve come. This simple shift in thinking makes all the difference in living a happier life.

This is the core principle of The Gap and The Gain and was developed by entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. In the book, organizational psychologist Benjamin Hardy connects Sullivan’s ideas to scientific concepts that help explain why we tend to focus on the future, and how we can train ourselves to focus on the past instead. Hardy and Sullivan argue that making this change can drastically improve your quality of life. In this guide, we’ll elaborate on the psychological concepts that Hardy presents and discuss how empirical research has (or hasn’t) supported the book’s main ideas.

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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.

Toxic Stress and Trauma

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.

Gain-Thinking Techniques

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.

Transform Your Past

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.)

Gains Today, Gains Tomorrow

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.

Tenet 1: Practice Gratitude

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.)

Tenet 2: Plan Ahead

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.

Tenet 3: Hold Yourself Accountable

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.)