Laura's Learnings

Documenting my life

Category: goals (Page 2 of 5)

The GAP and the GAIN

July 3, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I recently read the book The GAP and the GAIN by Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy, as I was intrigued by a review I saw about it.

In this post I will share the main takeaways and how I personally relate to the topics the authors discuss.

The definitions

You are in the GAP when you measure yourself or your situation against an ideal.  You are in the GAP when you think that “happiness” and “success” are something you “pursue” and will have in your future. The problem is that due do the hedonic adaptation process (discussed in the next paragraph) nothing ever will be enough, probably.

It’s human nature to be in the GAP. The GAIN is the antidote.

You are in the GAIN when you see the positives of a situation, when you learn from negative experiences and you measure yourself against your own past self and identify progress, instead of comparing yourself to others or an ideal.

Hedonic treadmill/adaptation

This is a term generally used in psychology to describe the fact that people tend to get used where they are at, what they have, etc. For example, if you want a promotion to buy yourself a new car, the new car will seem amazing at first but, soon, you will consider it your new “normal” and you will want something more. This cycle can easily become never ending, since there will always be something you don’t have if you compare yourself with others or an ideal.

You should, instead, measure your own progress and be proud of what you have overcome, what you have achieved and the steps you have taken already.

Transform an experience into a GAIN

Whenever you transform an experience into a GAIN— by creating new lessons, insights, or standards for yourself— you become better and your future becomes bigger

An experience gains value when you learn or reflect on it and you use these thoughts in the future. Of course an enjoyable experience has value in itself, but even then acknowledging this might encourage you to repeat this experience in the future. For unpleasant experiences, it’s easy to want to avoid thinking about them, but I have always found something to learn, when I have made the effort to reflect on them. I have a journal I write in, as I have found putting pen to paper helps me process feelings and thoughts calmly and I always come up with next steps and things to do to improve.

Progress not perfection [ok]

“When you’re in the GAIN, your progress becomes increasingly measurable to yourself and everyone around you. Yet, the more you’re in the GAIN, the less you compare, compete, or even care what other people think about you. 

You’re seeing new progress every day. You’re defining what your own experiences mean.” 

Psychology has shown that confidence does not create success, but rather, prior success creates confidence.

You should aim at having goals and working towards them with commitment, without becoming so attached to the destination that you don’t appreciate the journey. By having confidence and making progress, you will learn and improve and move forward, while being in no rush.

This is why, in some cases, I will set my goals so that they are output based rather than objective based. Instead of saying “I will do this by this day” I focus on how I plan to reach that deadline and focus on building a habit or routine that is measurable and that I track. And building and sticking to that habit becomes the goal itself.

Define your own success

The authors suggest spending 20 to 30 minutes reflectjng and writing about what success means to you and to figure out your personal success criteria. They suggest starting with the prompt “I know I’m being successful when…”. The idea behind this is to detatch yourself from the usual definition of success that society has taught us and to think about your own personal experience and values instead. This will allow you to feel successful without external validation and comparison. Another thing they highlight is that this definition might evolve overtime, as you gain new experience and knowledge.

Personally, I will reflect on this and on my values – I am curious to see if they are aligned and if they are in alignment with my day to day life. I suspect that I will find small things to change that will make me happier.

Plan for the real world

There is no point in being unrealistic and hoping everything will go smoothly. Things don’t always go as planned. What the authors suggest is to use a technique called implementation intention to guide you in these moments.

The idea is you come up with a plan for negative/not ideal situations you might find yourself in. This way, you will not have to think of the best action on the spot, but you will simply follow the steps you have planned. This might then lead you to creating a habit. In an example, they share how a sports coach would allow the players to be upset for 5 minutes after a lost match, and then they would have 10 minutes to think of the positives and improvement ideas.

I used to do something similar when an exam didn’t go well. I would be sad and upset and sometimes angry at myself for a short about of time, and then I would naturally start thinking about what went wrong and why. This made me learn from my mistakes and always led to actions to take to improve.

How to get out of the GAP?

The previous example shows how to get out of the GAP. It is a given that you will find yourself there at times, the goal is to get yourself out as soon as you can.

As they write in the book: “Here are five examples: After I compare myself with another person, I will say to myself, “Are you in the GAP or the GAIN?” After I feel discouraged, I will list 3 specific GAINS from the last 30 days. After someone tells me about a setback, I will say, “What did you GAIN from this experience?” After I start my weekly team meeting, I will ask, “What was your biggest GAIN yesterday?” After I open my journal, I will immediately write about one GAIN in my life.”

This section made me think of the weekly review I regularly do and how reflecting back on recent events always makes you see them in a more positive light and gives you the possibility to learn, especially if you use curiosity instead of judgment.

Track progress – always be learning

This section of the book is about tracking progress- it’s extremely important to be regularly reminded of past GAINS, so that you can look back and see how far you’ve come and the progress you have made.

In a way similarly to the hedonic treadmill, it’s easy to forget that you were previously struggling with something that might have become easy for you. Or you take for granted how far you’ve come and effectively ignore your progress.

The authors suggest thinking about recent wins and desired wins for the future. Reflecting on what you were focused on one year ago, how your life has changed since then and what you have learned in this last year ensures you are in the GAIN and you are growing as a person. An interesting prompt is about how your beliefs and definition of success have changed. 

I usually do this at the end of the year or at the half year mark, and it is always interesting to look back on.

Night routine

Throughout and especially towards the end of the book, the authors share practical tips on how to implement the ideas in the book. One of the topics is the daily routine around bedtime. They suggest putting phone on airplane mode 30 to 60 minutes before bed. This time should be used to wind down and reflect about the day, as well as plan for the next day. 

The first thing recommend is writing down three things you’re grateful for each and specific “wins” you had that day (they recommend 3) as it boosts your gratitude and your confidence.

Writing down three wins daily is one of the most effective ways to stay out of the GAP. You feel like you’re always winning and making progress. It keeps you in a state of momentum and confidence

Then you should write down the three wins you’d like to accomplish the next day. It’s important to not overdo it, but to be realistic, so writing more than three is discouraged. Of course you can do more than three things in a day, but it’s good to focus on the top three things in terms of impact when it comes to measuring success.

In the 5 Minute Journal, the last daily prompt is related to what could have made your day better. It’s phrased so that you reflect on how you could have improved things personally. I think this is a great way to learn from the past and improve

As you can see from the extensive post, there are many interesting points made in the book and it touches upon several topics. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in having a more positive outlook and wants to understand the importance of measuring progress rather than comparing yourself or your situation and is looking for ways to do that.

Time is finite

June 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Short post on a topic I have been thinking about recently: time passing and how to make the most of it.

I am in my thirties and I rarely think about the fact that my time to explore, enjoy life etc is limited. I am priviledged in many ways, I am healthy and I feel young, so I don’t truly always live every day as if it were the last.

Lately, however, I have started seeing things with a different perspective: if, for example, I go on one week-long holiday a year and I assume I will live to 80 (although I probably won’t go on holidays then, but who knows what life will look like), I have less than 50 holidays left. Although 50 is a huge number, it is still finite and makes me want to choose carefully what I do with my time off.

The same goes for the people I know: it feels like there will always be more time with them, but friends and family might move abroad or life happens and all of a sudden you regret not having done more with them. Fortunately many times this is happening because of a positive life event, but it can still be disruptive and unforseen.

Although the concept of “memento mori”, i.e. “remember you will die” is usually seen as pessimistic and depressing because it can equate to “life is short”, I find it can inspire to be bold and do more exciting things, think carefully about how you spend your time and be grateful for the opportunities you have.

I must credit Tim Urban: I read this great post by Wait But Why years ago, and it has probably been brewing in the back of my head since – highly recommend it.

I have heard that the book Four Thousand Weeks is on this topic, I will read it and I will link to my review here.

The mental load – how to stop procrastinating

June 16, 2022 / / 0 Comments

In this post I will discuss how the concept of mental load helped me not procrastinate and what strategies I find help me achieve this.

What is the mental load?

The concept of mental load is generally used in relationships or when living with flatmates. 

It describes the fact that there is, usually, an imbalance in how each person is expected to contribute to the household life, where some tasks or things done in preparation for something else go unseen and unnoticed.

For example, if a man and a woman live together, especially if they are partners, it’s generally more common for the woman to be expected to keep track of what needs to be done. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t share chores equally, but it could mean that the woman is aware of pending tasks and keeps track of to dos, while the man might need a reminder.

One of the reasons why this topic has been brough to awareness recently is that it’s exhausting. From the outside, the chores can be shared equally, but really, keeping track and feeling responsible requires energy,  and this isn’t always acknowledged.

The mental load of procrastination

With procrastination, we push things off to tomorrow or next week and then again and again. Sure, it’s easier than doing something which is boring or difficult. At the same time we have to keep track of this task. Make sure we don’t eventually forget or miss the deadline. Every time we have a spare moment, this to-do creeps up, nagging us.

It’s even harder when we worry we can’t do something and that’s the reason we procrstinate in the first place. In this case, you add the prospect of guilt or shame and failure to the mix, and the mental load increases even more.

I remind myself of this when I find myself procrastinating and I think back to the many times when actually doing the thing took was simpler than I thought.

Sometimes I prove myself wrong and find out I could do the thing just fine. What a success and feeling of accomplishment! And even if I do make a mistake or “fail”, it’s something I can acknowledge with certainty, and figure out what the next steps will be. This is definitely better than being in that “what if” state and lingering with no set action plan.

In any case, the energy procrastination takes up is almost always more then what is required to actually doing the task itself.

Here is my reminder to myself and anyone reading: put on some music and chip away at that thing weighing on your mental load. As they say, it will be a weight off your chest (and your mind). You will be thankful you did. Below are some of the things I do.

Strategies to avoid procrastination

  • TWO MINUTE RULE – extremely simple and self explanatory: if something takes less than two minutes to do, do it straight away. This has helped me not procrastinate those small annoying tasks that just keep nagging you until they’re done. Doing a task immediately means it will not become an “open tab” in your head, that you need to keep monitored, albeit subconsciously.
  • “DON’T SIT DOWN” rule – As we all know sitting down often means relaxing, especially after a long day. If there are things that need to be done, it’s easier for me to do them right when I get through the door, for example. I know I need to take my makeup off and brush my teeth – if I do so as soon as I get home it feels effortless, because the laziness that can me when I am on the couch has not had an opportunity to hit me yet.
  • When it comes to tidying, I have found it’s easy to do when everything has a home, as they say. You are not trying to think of where that thing should go or if the best place for this object is on the shelf or a random drawer – you are simply automatically moving things around with no need to think.
  • 10 MINUTE CHALLENGE – Another thing that has helped me is to set up a 10 minute timer and make it a challenge to tidy up a specific area. I usually also have a podcast or music in the background, so the boring/neutral task of tidying gets overshadowed by the pleasant task of listening to something I enjoy.
  • FUTURE YOU – I think about my future self and how she will appreciate me putting in the effort now. These tasks won’t be part of her mental load and she will be grateful I did them

How to get out of a rut

June 2, 2022 / / 0 Comments

As a few people have noticed, I have not been consistent with posting new articles on this blog lately. I must say that I have made significant progress in other areas of my life and I am very proud of it, and it’s natural to shift priorities from time to time. In the previous post I discuss a few reasons as to why I stopped posting.

In this article I will go over what I have done to get myself out of this rut, if you will. Only time will tell, but I think I have identified a few key points that have been helping me lately. Of course, please be mindful that every situation is different. In this case, this blog is a personal passion project of mine, so the stakes are low and I know I enjoyed publishing the first articles.

Go back to the why

The first thing to do is to reflect on your motivation for why. In my case , thinking back to the reasons for starting a blog in the first place, what I wanted to get out of it and why. This concept is something which is well known and it could seem obvious, but it’s not always easy to remind ourselves to check in with our why. In some cases you might even re-evaluate your core motivation and reasons for doing a certain thing and start going a new direction. This could be as extreme as deciding to quit/pause the project altogether: I think this demonstrates a lot of perspective and bravery and will allow you to focus on higher priority things. Or will find that a reminder of the initial goals and motivation is what you needed to fuel your next steps – great!  In any case, you know what you want now, where to focus your energy, and why.

For me, the first article published is conveniently titled Why am I starting this blog?. Reading it back and thinking about it was a good reminder of why I started the blog and how I believe consistency is key. So I decided to get back into the swing of things and really focus on the blog in the upcoming weeks.

Another thing to do is to talk to a friend or family member, as this can help evaluate the situation from an outside perspective. They will be able to offer their point of view and support and theh can help you figure out your next steps.

Get clarity 

When a task feels daunting, I stop and reflect. Often I find it’s overwhelming because I am unclear on what the different steps are and how I can break down the project into smaller tasks. In this article arguing if motivation is what we are missing, I quote James Clear

Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity. It is not always obvious when and where to take action.

This can happen without you realising. It’s usually good to take a step back, realize you don’t need to go from 0 to 100% in the next hour or day, but you can anyway make good progress, that will compound. 

In my case, I saw “restart blogging” as a huge task of publishing weekly posts for months in a row, sharing the content on different platforms, planning articles in advance for when I went on holiday and so on. Of course, these are all separate tasks. I don’t have to have months worth of articles ready by tomorrow. I can set up some time to share the content. All this was now not an overwhelming project, but a series of activities to plan and tick off one at a time. 

Plan

Once you know what you need to do, it’s important to define when you are going to focus on different things. I think having a strict schedule works in some cases, depending on your personality and the task at hand. But even if you prefer to be inspired in the moment, it’s useful to block your calendar to ensure you will dedicate this time to this project.

This is also helpful because it means you have a default response for what you will be doing on Tuesday evening, for example. No need to think about it, it’s already been decided by past-you. It could sound weird, but it has worked for me in the past.

Track

I find that tracking my progress is motivating, as I can see what I have accomplished already, how much effort I have put into something and the results that came with it. I suggest writing it down using either a notebook or a digital tool. I usually pair this with the plan I do every week as part of my weekly review (which I had also stopped doing, unfortunately).

Enjoy the journey 

You decided to work on this project for a bunch of reasons, which are now clearly defined, as per point 1. This is something you want and hopefully like to do. Of course there will be parts of it that will not feel easy or interesting, but it’s important to try and enjoy the journey as much as possible. And appreciate what you are doing and accomplishing along the way.

For me, I had forgotten that I actually enjoy writing. I like focusing on something which is challenging but not extremely tough and seeing the progress made. Writing helps me think and connect the dots. It’s tiring but also relaxing, in a way, because you are forced to put all your attention on one thing. Link to Deep Focus and Astronaut book.

For other parts of this project which I might find less interesting, I can set up a timer and challenge myself to complete a task in 25 minutes. I can make myself a coffee and eat something while chipping away at whatever I need to do. I can go to a café and sit outside in the sunshine for an hour, before seeing some friends. 

You can buy yourself something you wanted for a while as a reward for completing a big and challenging task.

Find ways to make the process fun, if it isn’t already, and appreciate it!

Find pockets of time

Hopefully you’re having fun and enjoying the process most of the time.  In the moments when you are not enthusiastic about a specific task, you will probably be able see progress and this will be motivating. So much so that you will start to look for time in which you can work on these tasks that build up your project.

It is 22:06 at the moment, I have just finished an online class and I felt slightly tired and could have easily started putting on my pjs and spend the rest of the evening on my phone. Instead I know I want to write this article and get back on track with this blog, so I opened Notion and started working on this draft instead. And now that I’ve started, I am actually enjoying it.

Another thing I noticed is that sometimes it’s easy to fall into the “it’s too late now, what is the point” trap. Something had gone wrong at 10 am and now the whole morning is ruined. You couldn’t go for a run because it was pouring outside and so you lay on the couch the whole day. Or, in this case, I had a class until 22 tonight, so the rest of the evening is gone. In some cases it’s good to have a buffer between different activities and time to reflect, relax, do nothing. But I find it’s incredibly easy to dismiss a portion of thr day because of something else that happened or will happen around that time. In these cases it’s useful to remind ourselves to find pockets of time and take advantage of this, since it all adds up and you will feel satisfied in the end.

Get in the flow of things 

I find that the more I leave a task and procrastinate it, the more difficult it seems. Once I start, instead, I often find that it is not, in fact as tough as I imagined it to be. The weird thing is this happens also related to activities you already know. I have been writing this blog for months and I liked the act of writing, elaborating my thoughts etc, but it still seemed so hard to start again. Probably I’d just gotten out of the habit. I have noticed just how simpler it feels once you are back in the flow. As mentioned before you start looking for opportunities and your perspective shifts. One thing leads to another also in terms in inspiration and ideas, topics to discuss and things to share. When writing one thing I think about another topic that could also make a good article and so on.

I hope you can take some of these pointers if you are in a rut – I know I will come back to it if needed 

Why I stopped posting

May 26, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I have not been publishing new blog posts. To be more precise, I have been procrastinating publishing new blog posts. 

Using this as an example, I will try and unpack a few thoughts on the topic, related to perfectionism, progress and habit building.

Perfectionism

Probably the main thing that is stopping me is this: I am trying to make sure everything will go smoothly from now on. This means no more lengthy breaks, always sharing on social media, continuously thinking about new topics and ideas to share or things to document, just to name a few things. I am waiting until I have enough drafts, ideas, knowledge to feel fail-proof.

Making sure everything is perfect from the beginning is generally very difficult. In reality, publishing a post is the key action. The main thing is to write something I am proud of and hit publish.

  • For some aspects, the marginal gains are usually small after you are 95% there – it’s only through experience that you can have significant improvements, in my experience. 
  • In other cases, there will be things you can’t control or things that change for various reasons, so there is no point in worrying about those and procrastinating.

Progress not perfection

As mentioned above, in hindsight there will always things I could do better and I’m sure I will look back on the first posts and find ways in which they could be improved, once I have more experience and knowledge.

Having a blog means I am able to document the progress, but this is possible only if I actually publish. This is actually one of my main goals for this website.

As the quote says: “Done is better than perfect”. I always strive to do my best, but I like this saying because it reminds me that the real improvement happens through repetition and continuously challenging yourself to learn from your mistakes and move on and create something new.

Break it down

If I think about maintaining a blog, a bunch of things I need to do come to mind. I find this can feel overwhelming because you somehow think you must to everything at once. In reality, each task is a separate thing and recognising that you don’t need to do everything right now is simple yet effective, and it can be easy to forget, especially if you are trying to pick a project back up.

Keeping up the habit

Another reason why this now feels so much harder than a few months ago is that I am not in the habit of writing and, especially, posting, anymore.

I used to write new posts on Saturdays or Sundays, then publish them and sometimes share online. It was something I “just did”, it was part of my weekend routine and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. I still really like writing and taking a moment to reflect and share my thoughts.

Although this is a specific situation, this applies to many other scenarios: meal prepping or eating healthy, exercise, doing a weekly review, etc. It’s important to not lose the habit, or starting again will be more difficult.

This is why yesandyes suggests to have so-called “bookmark habits”, i.e. simpler versions of your usual habits that you know you can do no matter what. This way, you are sure you don’t lose that muscle memory you can’t keep up with the “complete” habit for a while. For example, Sarah, the author, will make her bed even when staying in a hotel on holiday. 

In summary, I am happy I tried to dig a bit deeper and I thought about how I can help myself, now and in the future. I will probably come back to this post sometime in the future. 

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