This new schedule has been a little rough... Having a high schooler has certainly been a bigger change than I had anticipated. It has forced me to have a little earlier wake-up time than I am used to, even on the days that I don't have to go into work early to coach our kettlebell classes. I want to be sure to see her before she leaves every morning, and she has been having some difficulty working her alarm clock... So I have had to wake her up once or twice.
While there have definitely been some growing pains with the new routine, this period of change reminded me of a quote that I remember from Ryan Holiday's book The Obstacle Is The Way. In that book, Holiday wrote "Think progress, not perfection." This quote has always resonated with me and I find myself thinking of it nearly every morning. It is not fair to expect her to wake up on her own every morning, or to remember to pack her lunch, or to grab all the stuff that she needs for practice after school... YET!
That goal has not been reached yet, but we are making progress. We all tend to focus all of our attention on reaching the distant goals that we have set in life. In reality, it is far more effective and rewarding to see the progress that we have made in pursuit of those goals.
Dan Sullivan wrote a book called The Gap and The Gain. The primary takeaway from this book was the introduction of the concept of what the Gap and the Gain are. You may be unfamiliar with those terms. Sullivan explains that the Gap is the distance between where we are currently and the destination that we are trying to reach (our long term goal), and the Gain is the distance from where we started our journey to current location.
This change in focus creates an incredibly power mindset shift. Earlier this week I was talking with a patient who had lost 80 lbs in the last several months! During our conversation, he was more focused on the 15 lbs that he still wanted to lose. He was convinced that those 15 lbs were the cause of his lower back pain. I asked him to stop for a moment and think. Then I explained this concept of the Gap and the Gain to him, and asked him to first celebrate the progress that he had already made, rather than focusing solely on the work left to do. The moment he shifted his focus his demeanor changed, he sat up taller, and a smile grew on his face. He was proud of all that he had already accomplished.
Which do you focus on more?
Are you looking at the Gap or the Gain?
