Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #210| Boost Productivity and Motivation By Focusing on Gains, Not Gaps
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: The only way to measure success is to measure backwards.
- 0:08Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:25Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Today we're talking about a mindset that has changed the way I think about progress and achievement and what it actually means to be successful.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: And it's from a book called The Gap in the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr.
- 0:47Michelle Gauthier: Benjamin Hardy.
- 0:48Michelle Gauthier: And it is one of my favorite books.
- 0:51Michelle Gauthier: I feel like I say that every time I do one of these book reviews, but I am, just to be honest, I'm reviewing my favorite book.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: So it is one of my absolute faves.
- 0:59Michelle Gauthier: It is the one that I gift my clients most often.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: And I think if you were to poll all my former clients who I have sent books to, that they would say this was the one that had the biggest impact on them.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: It is a huge game changer if you can really get into and start living this gap in the gain way.
- 1:16Michelle Gauthier: So today I will tell you the big ideas about the gap versus the gain.
- 1:21Michelle Gauthier: I'll talk to you about a couple of my favorite takeaways from the book and how you can apply what this book teaches you today.
- 1:28Michelle Gauthier: So that way you can either just learn something from this podcast or you can decide, oh wow, I think I really actually need to read that book.
- 1:35Michelle Gauthier: Either way, I'm happy.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: All right, so let's first talk about the big idea of this book, which is essentially what is the gap versus the gain?
- 1:44Michelle Gauthier: The core concept is that most of us, especially high-achieving, growth-minded people, like everyone who listens to this podcast, myself included, are stuck in what the book calls the gap.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: And what the gap means is that you're measuring yourself and your success against an ideal, a future version of yourself, some perfect outcome or an impossible standard in your mind.
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: And what that means is no matter how much you do, it's never enough because the moment you achieve something, you just raise the bar again.
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: In the book, they talk about an entrepreneur and he has started a business, and a couple years in, he makes $2 million.
- 2:21Michelle Gauthier: At the end of the year, he's made $2 million.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: And he comes to the authors of The Gap in the Gain and says, I feel like a complete loser.
- 2:28Michelle Gauthier: Like I have just totally failed this year.
- 2:30Michelle Gauthier: And when they inquired, he said, Well, in my mind, I wanted to make $10 million.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: He's measuring the gap, which is the amount between $2 million that he did make and $10 million that he had in his mind and focusing on that versus focusing on the fact that he just made $2 million.
- 2:48Michelle Gauthier: And when they interviewed him about it, he said, Oh my gosh, yes, when I first started my business, I would dream of making six figures.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: And now here I am making two million dollars and just making it like it doesn't count at all.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: So the gap is looking at that area between what you did accomplish and what you had in your mind as a future goal.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: The gain, on the other hand, is when you measure yourself against your past self.
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: So you look at where you started and you measure backwards.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: In the case of this guy starting a business a couple of years ago, making zero and then making six figures, and then this time making $2 million.
- 3:23Michelle Gauthier: You look backwards.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: And if you use the game thinking, you measure what you have done and where you have succeeded.
- 3:31Michelle Gauthier: And it's still okay for him to have that goal of making $10 million.
- 3:34Michelle Gauthier: You can have whatever kind of outcome that you would like to have, but it's just so important to first of all look backwards and see where you have grown and what you have accomplished, and then to celebrate that.
- 3:48Michelle Gauthier: Another non-millions of dollars example is if you're a person who started working out this year because you really wanted to get stronger or lose weight or something like that.
- 3:59Michelle Gauthier: And you had a goal to go to your gym a hundred times, and at the end of the year you've gone to the gym 80 times and you're like, oh, I didn't make it.
- 4:07Michelle Gauthier: But you went 80 times more than you went the year before that.
- 4:11Michelle Gauthier: So if you measure with the gain, it's 80 visits to the gym when, if you measure with the gap, it's 20 times when you didn't go.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: And guess which one of those is going to make you much more likely to continue working on that habit?
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: The gain, of course.
- 4:27Michelle Gauthier: So here are my three favorite takeaways from this book.
- 4:29Michelle Gauthier: Takeaway number one is the only way to measure success is to measure backwards.
- 4:34Michelle Gauthier: Don't measure success forward toward an ideal, or you'll never feel like you're winning.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: But when you look back, you start to see your strength and your growth and your momentum, and you realize, oh wow, I actually have come a long way, or I have made a little progress, whatever progress you have made.
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: The other takeaway is living in the gain gives you energy.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: So you really have the option to live in the gap or live in the gain just based on the way that you're thinking.
- 5:00Michelle Gauthier: But when you live in the gap, everything feels heavy.
- 5:03Michelle Gauthier: You feel like you're failing all the time, you're always chasing and proving and pushing and try to get to more, more, more.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: But when you live in the gain, you start to feel proud and confident and motivated, which then generates more success.
- 5:16Michelle Gauthier: It's really not about lowering the bar, it's just giving yourself credit where you are already doing a good job.
- 5:22Michelle Gauthier: This is a big one with my clients.
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: When we talk about this and they start implementing this in their lives, their lives really start to change.
- 5:29Michelle Gauthier: Another favorite takeaway from the book is that even setbacks or failures can become wins when you live in the gain.
- 5:35Michelle Gauthier: So if you had a tough conversation or missed a deadline or fell short on a goal, but you learned something, that's still a gain.
- 5:44Michelle Gauthier: When you're moving forward in any way, shape, or form, you can always look back and find some gain in there as long as you're learning.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: It's not about perfection, it's really about perspective.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: So let's think about how you can apply this to your life today.
- 5:57Michelle Gauthier: In the book, they recommend asking yourself at the end of each day, or you could even do this for a week, what did I get done today?
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: What progress did I make, even if it was small?
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: How am I different from how I was a month ago or a week ago?
- 6:12Michelle Gauthier: And it really rewires your brain to look for success instead of looking for lack.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: One thing that I do with my one-on-one clients is every time we get on our call, the first thing I ask them for is wins.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: Tell me your wins for the week.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: What are your gains for the week?
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: And at first it's hard for them to come up with them.
- 6:30Michelle Gauthier: Once they get used to me asking them that every week, they start to notice it.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: And oftentimes we'll write them down throughout the week.
- 6:37Michelle Gauthier: And when we get on the call, they're immediately like, ooh, I've got so many wins to tell you about today.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: And it's not that they have so many more wins, it's that they start paying attention to these so many wins.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: And then when they tell them to me, they get even more motivated, and that gets them more wins.
- 6:53Michelle Gauthier: I just can't recommend this concept and this book enough, in case you can't tell from the excitement in my voice.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: I absolutely love it.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: I would recommend it to anybody.
- 7:02Michelle Gauthier: One of the things that I do in my 2026 Your Best Year class, which is going to be on January 6th this year at noon central time, is I teach you how to set goals that are based only on things that are in your control, which is very in line with gain thinking.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: For example, a big part of my business is this podcast that you're listening to.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for listening, by the way, as a side note.
- 7:26Michelle Gauthier: And if I were to create a goal that was get this podcast in the top 1%.
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: So right now it's in the top 1.5%.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: I want to get it into the top 1%.
- 7:36Michelle Gauthier: That is not a good goal to have.
- 7:38Michelle Gauthier: That is a good desired outcome.
- 7:41Michelle Gauthier: But the goal that I'm going to set for myself that I can measure backwards against is writing and recording and putting out two episodes a week that I have put a lot of time and effort into that I feel good about.
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: Another thing that I do is I pitch other podcasts to see if I can be on as a guest on their podcast.
- 8:00Michelle Gauthier: I will pull my audience and ask them what they think and what they like so that I can create content that's more interesting to them.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: So those are all things that are in my control that I can look back on and see that I have succeeded on the goals that I have set for myself and that I can hope to get that top 1% spot.
- 8:18Michelle Gauthier: But if I don't, I know that I have done a good job putting out good content and feeling good about hitting my own goals.
- 8:25Michelle Gauthier: So if you want to learn how to set goals like that so that you can have a more successful 2026, I would love to have you come and join the class.
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: It's $26.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: So it is a no-brainer investment.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: It's a one-hour workshop, and you will learn all about how to set goals that fit in with your lifestyle, how to choose your word for the year, decide which areas of your life you want to focus on.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: And by the end of the class, you will know exactly what goals you want to create and how to word them and schedule them so that you can really execute this year.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: Okay, go read the gap in the gain and sign up for my class.
- 9:00Michelle Gauthier: I think you'll love it.
- 9:05Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:08Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 9:14Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.