QUOTE OF THE DAY
Why It Never Feels Like Enough
“Progress is impossible to appreciate when you’re always measuring against a moving target.”
— Dan Sullivan
IDEA OF THE DAY
Have you ever had a moment where you should feel good about where you are…
…but your mind immediately goes to everything that’s missing?
- You’re not where you thought you’d be by now
- Someone else seems further ahead
- There’s still so much left to figure out
If that sounds familiar, there’s actually a name for it:
The gap.
The Trap of the “Gap”
In The Gap and the Gain, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy describe how easy it is to measure ourselves against an ideal.
A future version of life where we’ve “made it.”
It often sounds like:
- I should be further along by now
- I should have figured this out already
The problem?
That finish line keeps moving.
(NoooooOOOOOOOOoooo 😄)
So no matter what you do… it never quite feels like enough.
The Alternative: The Gain
There’s another way to measure your life:
The gain.
Instead of comparing yourself to where you think you should be…
You compare yourself to where you used to be.
And that shift changes everything.
Same Life, Different Experience
When you look at your life through the lens of the gain, you start to notice:
- how much you’ve handled
- how much you’ve grown
- how different you are than even a year ago
Same circumstances.
Completely different feeling.
A Personal Example
When I look at my coaching practice and compare it to others, it’s very easy to feel discouraged.
I’m not a flashy coach speaking to thousands.
I haven’t made millions doing what I love.
I don’t have a massive following.
And just like that, my brain goes to:
I should be doing more.
That heavy, familiar feeling creeps in.
But when I shift into the gain…
Everything changes.
I think about who I was as a coach seven years ago.
And I see:
- more confidence
- more ease in how I support clients
- a stable practice that I genuinely love
Same reality.
Completely different experience.
A Simple Perspective Shift to Try
Instead of asking:
“Why am I not further along?”
Try asking:
“If I showed this version of my life to my past self, what would stand out?”
Then pause.
Let yourself actually see it.
An Invitation
You are always accumulating growth.
The only question is whether you’re measuring it in a way that allows you to feel it.
So today, experiment with measuring differently.
Let go of the “shoulds.”
Step out of comparison.
And take a moment to acknowledge how far you’ve come.
A Question to Reflect On
If you compared yourself only to who you were a year ago, what would you notice?
If You Need Support Seeing Your Own Growth
Sometimes it’s hard to see your progress from the inside.
That’s part of the work we do together—creating space to recognize your growth while also moving forward in a way that actually feels aligned.
You don’t have to keep chasing a moving target.