The Gap

“The Gap” as I define it is the difference between what you say you want in your life versus the results you’re actually producing. For instance, let’s say you want to make $90,000 per year, but you’re actually making $65,000. That’s a gap and a pretty big one at that. I have never met a person who doesn’t have a gap or two in their life. In fact, most of us can probably identify several gaps right now (health, wealth, relationships, career and balance are some areas where gaps exist). And while there is nothing wrong with having a gap, if you peer inside

it you will invariably find suffering of some degree. The suffering is caused by the belief that some aspect of your life should be different than it actually is, that your results should match up

with what you want. You are fighting reality, and when we fight reality the outcome is always the same -suffering. And suffering, while perhaps useful in small doses, is not usually productive in the long term because it diminishes our energy and thereby limits our ability to create powerful
results.

So why do we have gaps and more importantly how on earth do we close them? Every gap that I can identify in my own life, and there are several, is created by fear. And the fear that is ultimately behind every gap that I have is the same one – am I good enough? Take a quick look at a gap in your life, can you see the fear that is creating it? Is it a lot like mine?

If you look at a gap in your life you might find that you fill them, usually with four things: blame, justification, rationalization and excuses. Do you do this? I know I do. And when I slow down I can clearly see that these are all just “outs” I’ve given myself to play small by not taking an action that would have me actually closing my gap.

I was doing a training not long ago and we were discussing “The Gap”. The subject of personal weight came up and women in the group admitted that she had a “gap” around her weight.

However, according to her, the only reason she had a gap was because her husband was a chef (no kidding, that’s what she said). In one statement she had blamed, justified, rationalized and excused away her gap. Everyone laughed, including her, and in the moment I thought it was really funny. But the more I thought about it the less funny it was to me because her
statement clearly illuminated how blind we are to our gaps and how we can explain them away so easily. In doing so, we perpetuate the suffering that accompanies the gap.

So how do we close the gaps in our life? Though I certainly don’t have “The Truth” around this topic, I have identified four things, that when applied, will usually result in the closing of a gap; more effort, more courage, more love and more presence. Look at a gap in your life. Can you see how applying one or usually all of these elements will have you closing your gap? Or said differently, can you see how an absence of these things is creating or maintaining the gaps in your life?

Let me give you an example. I have wanted to write a book for over 10 years. To date, I have not written a book and it is a big gap for me. One thing about a gap, the bigger the gap the more the suffering. Every time I think about the book along comes some degree of suffering in the form of upset and disappointment. I have a lot of reasons for not having written a book, but all of them are just happy horseshit, falling directly into the aforementioned categories of blame, justification, etc.The real reason I haven’t written a book is that I’m afraid the book may not be good enough, or valuable enough or blah blah blah enough. And so when facing my fear, I
have frozen; choosing to stay stuck rather than take an action. Does that sound familiar?

Roughly a year ago I started really looking at the Gaps in my life and evaluating what things I would need to do to close them. In the case of the book, I started putting more effort into writing something every day, even if it was just a single sentence. And I decided to start putting some
writing (like this article) into the public domain which required a lot of courage on my part to simply press send. I also stopped taking myself so seriously, as if it was a life or death thing to write a book that was perfect, one that would be a bestseller. In doing so, I fell back in love with the process of writing and so it morphed from being almost a burden to one of being fun again. And I committed to being more present when I write by eliminating the distractions that I had used to get out of writing – like tying flies, surfing the web, watching Youtube videos, you get the picture.

As a result of all these changes I have actually completed several chapters of my book and with each chapter the gap closes a little bit more. In my experience, when you begin to close a gap the feeling you have about the gap transforms from dread to excitement. You are in the world of
action versus avoidance and it feels empowering.

What is a big gap in your life that you would like to close?

What’s required to close it?

What would closing the gap do for you?

Who will hold you accountable to closing it?

By when will you close it?

Have fun!!