Gap vs. Gain

For the past two years, I was fortunate enough to be a member in a mastermind group led by Michael Hyatt. During that time, I learned some incredible concepts, ideas, and perspectives that I can guarantee will impact the rest of my life. One of these concepts is called the Gap vs. Gain perspective. As simple as it is, the idea can be life changing if you will implement it.

For the sake of illustration, let’s say I started 2016 with an email subscriber base of 500 people that receive weekly updates to this blog and I had a goal of increasing that number to 2,500 by the end of this year. Over the period of the year, I had some successes and some failed efforts and I ended with close to 1,700 subscribers. In this illustration, I missed my goal by a significant amount, right?

Which Perspective Is Best?

Looking at this hypothetical situation, it would be easy for me to be very disappointed, even frustrated with my year. This negative attitude could even have an adverse affect on my planning for the upcoming year. Of course some people might be energized by the “miss” and double down, but others might let the failure derail their mindset.

The Gap vs. Gain concept says that we should not focus our attention on the “Gap” between our original goal and our final result. In this case, my focus should not be on the “Gap” of 800 subscribers that I failed to enlist. Instead, I need to celebrate the “Gain” of 1,200 subscribers and refocus on repeating, even multiplying, the successes that resulted in that “Gain”.

Focus On The Gain!

This concept works during the year as well. Say I review my goals in May and realize I am behind on the pace I need in order to hit my year end goal. Rather than beating myself up over the huge “Gap” I see in my results to date, I need to focus on the “Gain” so far. In doing this, my attitude is lifted and I am better positioned to increase my pace over the remainder of the year.

On multiple occasions over the past several years, I have received an email or comment from a fellow Christian business owner or leader regarding the perceived lack of ministry they are achieving through their business. Invariably, I get the sense that they are reading my posts about some of the ministry going on in our business or that of someone else I have described.

The clear message I get from many of these communications is that these leaders are frustrated with how little they think they are doing compared to what they perceive our business is doing. As I read these emails and comments, I always think the same thing – “I wish you would focus on the Gain rather than the Gap!”

Year End Perspective

Another example of this could be the questions from my last post. I listed seven tough questions for Christian business owners and leaders to ask themselves as they review their performance over the prior year. Every year, as I read these very questions, I often get frustrated at my poor performance in certain areas. I sometimes interpret these questions to be setting near-impossible standards for me!

However, as I apply the Gap vs. Gain concept, I begin to relax a little. I begin to see my progress in each of those areas, knowing that this Christian life is a journey toward these standards. I then acknowledge that I will never be able to answer all of these questions with 100% success. I allow myself to fail, but never to stop progressing. I simply want to continue creating “Gains” as I move forward. I do not worry about the “Gap”.

Change Your Perspective

I encourage you to stop and take some time to apply this Gap vs. Gain concept to your own situation. Begin celebrating, individually and with your team, the gains you are making toward your goals. Stop getting overwhelmed and frustrated with the gaps. The key is to keep moving forward, always making progress!

Do you practice the perspective of focusing on gains, not gaps?

If so, what benefits have you experienced?

If not, what steps do you need to take to change?

Photo by phototechno/iStock

Far From High Goals

I found myself (and our business) in this position not too long ago. We had set some amazingly high goals for the year. We were more than half way through the year and had not made near the progress we needed in order to be on track to hit the goals. In fact, we were so far from being on track, that it was easy for me to lose hope.

I never really said I was quitting, but I certainly did not believe the goals were achievable any more. I was disheartened and frustrated, but I knew I could not give up. If I did, not only would we certainly miss our goals, we would also risk giving up any progress we had made.

A loss of hope in my mind would also translate down through my team, creating an undercurrent of all sorts of negative feelings and confusion. As a leader, I knew I could not afford to allow that to happen. I sought help.

Solid Advice

I brought up my situation to my accountability group. I was transparent about our lack of progress and my feelings about the loss of hope. While this was not easy to do in a group of high-performers, I realized it was exactly what I needed to do if I wanted to correct the problem. I knew the guys in this group could see through the issues and get to the core of what I needed to do.

Sure enough, the advice I was given was solid. It was not a miracle cure, but it came close. Immediately, I took their advice and implemented it to the best of my ability. Since that point in time, my attitude changed and my hope returned. While there was no material change in my circumstances, my perspective changed and that made all the difference.

Focus On The Gain, Not The Gap

Since I am assuming there are many of you who have experienced this same loss of hope, I want to share the advice I was given. If you will take the time to implement what I share with you, I promise you your perspective will change and your hope will return as well!

The advice was very simple…begin focusing on the GAIN, not on the GAP.

Let me explain. Let’s say you have set a goal to reach a certain sales level in your business. When you start out, there is a long way to go before you hit the goal – that is the GAP.

After a couple of months, you look back and see that you have made some progress. Maybe it is not enough (as in my case), but there IS some progress. This is the GAIN.

Application

So here is the deal, when you find yourself frustrated and disheartened like I was, it is because you are too focused on the GAP. When you are so far from hitting your goals, obsessing about the gap will do nothing but kill your hope. And, as I said before, this begins a slow death sentence for your team.

Instead, my group told me to focus on the GAIN. They said to take a look back and see what kind of progress we had made. I was told to take some time and list all of the areas in which we had made gains. Then I was to focus in these areas, working to add to the gains.

Like I said before, there was no real change to my circumstances. We were still a LONG way from hitting our goals. The odds were still very slim that we would even come close to our goals.

Change In Perspective

But what DID change was my perspective. And as a result, my attitude changed. I began to see progress where before I had seen only failure. This change in perspective served as a very effective stimulant for my mind. My team could see the difference and they responded in kind.

As I focused on the gains, I also found myself praising them for the gains. I was no longer pointing out the gaps, but was encouraging them with the gains. It was contagious and truly added lift to our overall approach to the business.

Not A Parlor Trick

Please understand, I am not trying to say that you can trick your mind into hitting goals. This is not some miracle method that suddenly allows you to hit those near-impossible goals when there is too little time to do so. No, this is not likely to rescue you when you are down by five touchdowns at half-time.

What it WILL do is break you free from the weight of frustration and loss of hope. It will give you a fresh new outlook so that you can think clearly about what needs to be done to squeeze all you can out of the remaining time. It can also put you back in a position of positive, encouraging leadership with your team.

So, the next time you find yourself in this position of frustration and loss of hope toward your huge goals, remember to turn your attention from the GAP and focus on the GAINS. I am convinced you will thank me for it!

Have you found yourself in this position with little hope?

How can you focus on your gain today?

Do you know someone else that could use this advice?

Photo by Grufnar/iStock

My Best Year Ever

As with anything I share here, I do not claim that my process is the best. I do not pretend to have it all figured out. What I will say is that I am personally coming off of my best year ever in regards to my annual goals. I was able to accomplish more this past year across every area of my life than any year before.

For that reason, I encourage you to start with my last post (Steps #1-3) and then pick up below with Step #4. Go through this process and see if you think it can work for you. As always, if you have any questions, please contact me HERE and I will do my best to answer them.

Step #4 – Review Last Year

My next step in the process is to review my prior year. This review can provide key insights into what I do and do not need to work on in the upcoming year. Thinking back through the last 12 months can be very helpful in determining my goals for the coming year.

There are a couple of tools I use to accomplish this review in a structured way. The first tool is the C12 Yearly Audit. You can find a copy of this tool ** HERE ** in my Resource Library. The C12 Yearly Audit walks you through 10 different areas of the life of a disciple of Jesus. Each area is scored according to your effort and results.

Another tool I used for the first time this year is Michael Hyatt’s Lifescore Assessment. This is a tool that is similar to the C12 tool because it also assesses 10 different areas of your life. It is not specific to the Christian faith like the C12 tool, but it does go a little further in the scoring process and is easier to get a more objective score. Plus, it comes in an Excel spreadsheet that is very cool to use!

Regardless of the tool you use, the review of your prior year is a critical step in completing your plans for making the upcoming one your best year ever. I encourage you to try one (or both) of these tools to get started. I think you will quickly see the benefits!

Step #5 – Set Your Goals

If you ask 100 people whether they set goals every year or not, it is likely that most would say they do. Unfortunately, I am betting that the majority of those who would say they do are actually referring to their New Year’s resolutions. While I understand their perception that this practice qualifies, I would have to disagree. I see these two practices as completely different from each other.

The reality is that the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned before the end of January! I don’t know the stats, but I would bet heavily that very few resolutions make it past March. Why is that? What is so different about setting goals and making New Year’s resolutions?

When I describe goal-setting, I am talking about a very serious process that consists of several steps (including my steps 1-4 in my previous post). While I have been setting goals for years, I have not found a better process for doing so than Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever program. Quite simply, I have had more personal success since I started using this program. It is fantastic and I strongly recommend it to everyone that is serious about seeing results next year. I will most certainly be using it again this year!

The bottom line is that you must spend time in this part of the process if you want to see results. You need to make sure your goals are spread across your various roles, not focused on only one or two of them. You should make sure they follow the SMART guidelines. Finally, you MUST write them down! Commit to them and you will achieve them.

Step #6 – Find Accountability Partners

One of the keys to follow through on setting goals is accountability. The odds are low of pushing through and completing all of your “best year ever” goals on your own. A select few may be capable of doing it this way, but the rest of us need help. We need support, advice, and the occasional kick in the rear from accountability partners. When this support is in place, the odds of achieving your goals will skyrocket!

The best practice is to find a couple (or more) like-minded individuals that are just as serious as you are about setting and accomplishing goals. Engage these individuals in the process with you and set regular group meeting times throughout the year (monthly is best for me). At these meetings, each member reports to the group on their progress toward their goals, their greatest accomplishments, and where they are struggling or need help.

If you have found the right partners, you will see the group come together through the process. You will likely see a high completion rate and an ongoing sense of confidence and excitement. Once you have gotten stuck a couple of times and experienced the “kick” from the group, you will appreciate the value of this part of the process!

Step #7 – Review Regularly

The final step is to create a process for regular review of your goals and plans. While the monthly accountability meetings are certainly helpful in this regard, they will not meet all of your needs here.

What is necessary is a more frequent review of your goals, the corresponding motivation factors, and your timelines. This review is best done on a weekly basis. It will likely require you to set aside an hour or so of your time, but it is worth it. In fact, this is probably my most valuable time every week!

In this review time, you simply read through every goal, your reasons for setting the goal, and your next steps on your timeline for each. You then plan out your next week and assign appointments for completing each step. You map out your next week in advance!

Summary

I sincerely hope you see value in this process as I have outlined it. If you already have a year-end process for laying out your goals and plans for the upcoming year AND you are seeing tremendous results as you execute this process, then by all means, continue your process! Don’t change a thing!

If, on the other hand, you look back over the past few years and see missed opportunities, abandoned goals, and regret, then please do something for me. Draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!” Determine right now that you are going to make a change this year. Start with Step #1 and don’t stop until you have completed all 7 steps I described. When you do, send me a note and let me know about your decision. I would love to hear your results!

photo by Paige Foster

LIFE Plan Document

In my last post, I gave you a detailed description and break-down of my main LIFE Plan document. I described my Roles, Focus Areas, and Goals. I gave you a couple of samples from these areas. I also gave you access to download my [Title Page Summary] and [Godly Father Role].

As you can probably guess, combining all of these pieces into a complete document makes for a long document. The length of the document made it difficult to quickly review it on a regular basis. While I considered cutting it down, I just could not figure out which parts to eliminate.

Dashboard as Summary

So, as a result, I decided I needed a “dashboard” of sorts. With a one-page summary, I felt I could use this document in a weekly review process. I used a compilation of several resources I had found (and created a spreadsheet that would represent the month to month living out of my LIFE Plan. This Dashboard is made up of many sections, or “Gauges”, that help me keep my overall LIFE plan at the forefront of my mind.

Roles, Focuses, and Goals Gauges

For the first section, I started with the eight roles and laid out the sheet in a way that would allow me to see all eight Roles and the corresponding Focus Areas. Then, I left three blanks under each Role for monthly Goals. Each month, I update my monthly Goals, leaving the Roles and Focus Areas the same throughout the year.

Take a look at the picture below to get an idea of what I mean. (Note the Roles and Focus Areas have changed…this is part of my dashboard from December 2010)

Remaining Sections

As I have said several times, this whole process has evolved over time for me. You may want to stop right there and let your dashboard include only your Roles, Focuses, and Goals Guages. I started here, but have since added to mine. I will share the rest of my Dashboard with you and let you decide if any of it is interesting to you.

Strengths Gauges

In his book Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham describes how working on your strengths is the best strategy. At the end of the book, you take a test and are told your top strengths. I really found the material to be enlightening and began determining how I could apply it to my life.

In a sequel to Buckingham’s book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, author Tom Rath details out a list of 10 strategies for developing each strength described. I picked the top two or three of those actions for each of my top four strengths and put them on my dashboard.

Take a look at this picture to see how this looks.

Final Gauges

Across the bottom of the LIFE plan Dashboard, I added four more sections based on what I felt was most important to review regularly. You may substitute your own categories here, but I included the following:

1. Prayer Focus – a listing of various ongoing areas in which I focused my prayer
2. Reading/Listening Plan – a list of the books and audio for that month
3. 360 Assessment – my top ten concern areas from a 360 degree assessment of me
4. Scripture – a list of references to the 15-20 verses I am trying to memorize

Here is a visual of these gauges.

Closing Quote

To close out the bottom of my LIFE Plan Dashboard, I wanted something to keep me focused on the big picture. I learned in my C12 group that I should always be ready with a conversation-starting response to the question, “What do you do for a living?” I used this answer to close out my dashboard.

I work for an unusual company. It is an car dealership group that is a Christian company. We are trying to learn, and to show, how Jesus would run a company if He were the boss.

That’s It!

So, there it is! That is my LIFE Plan Dashboard, in all its glory! If you want to see the entire document together, just [Click Here].

Some of you are thinking I am crazy and others are thinking I am weak. That is fine! I can handle it!

Regardless of what you are thinking, I encourage you to do something similar. I will go into more detail about how I use this Dashboard in my final post in this series, but for now, I urge you to think about what you could create that would be easy to review on a weekly basis. Keeping your life plan in front of you in some shape or form will keep you closer to the path God has revealed to you.

What is your reaction to this dashboard?

Do you see how you could benefit from a weekly review of your life plan?

What do you see to be your next step in the life planning process?

Originally posted 1/26/12

Brief History

Before I go into detail about what made the meeting so powerful, I want to give you a brief history of what led to it. Back in October, as I have mentioned often in this blog, I attended the Catalyst Conference. I learned more during this conference than I have at any other I have attended.

Toward the end of the conference, every attendee was given a cardboard cut-out of a “call-out” like you would see in a comic strip or cartoon (see picture at left). We were told to write on this cardboard call-out any commitment(s) we were making as a result of what we had heard during the conference. Then, at the end of the last session, we were all to hold up our call-out commitments for everyone to see.

Applied to Work

Because I thought this was a great idea, I brought a blank one back to work with me. We had duplicates made and gave one to every employee in the sales department. Everyone was told to come back a week later with their personal and professional goals written on the cards, ready to present them to the group. We gave examples of what they might write, but left it wide open.

All week, our sales managers worked with the salespeople in planning their performance goals for 2012. They also helped the salespeople think about their personal goals, asking questions to help prod them to think bigger. We encouraged them to “Get A Bigger Frying Pan!” as it related to their performance as well as how that could impact their lives outside of work.

Exceeded Expectations

I have to be honest, knowing that many of these people had never spent any time planning out their income, performance, or personal goals before, I was not expecting much. I was hoping for a few bright lights to make the exercise worthwhile. Even then, I was not convinced I would not be disappointed. My expectations were not reflective of the quality of the people, just their lack of experience with this kind of thinking.

As I alluded to at the beginning of this post, I was flat blown away. Folks, I simply cannot describe to you the power I saw in this exercise. This is one of those times where my vocabulary and lack of professional writing skills fails me (and you)! I just cannot do it justice.

Genuine Personal Goal Setting

What I witnessed was a group of 25-30 co-workers pour their hearts into sharing with the group what their real desires were for the new year. I saw souls bared and masks removed. I saw people looking to others for true acceptance and encouragement, seemingly without fear of rejection. I saw real, raw life goals come out in virtually every single presentation.

One young lady shared that she had been in a bad car accident over a year ago and only recently began driving again due to severe anxiety and fear. Her goal: to make enough money this year to buy a car for cash…not only for the purpose of having a car, but to overcome the fear and put it behind her.

Another young man has been unable to be involved at all in the life of his 5 yr old son until the past few months. His goal: to make enough money to be able to take that son on vacation for the first time ever.

One of the older salesmen has set a goal for increased income so he can better support a local family of 14. The unusual part is this: he is not related to them. He simply wants to give back out of his abundance.

Use This Idea!

I could go on and on, but I do not have the room here. Trust me that I witnessed the early signs of some lives changing in significant ways. I must encourage you in the strongest words possible to take this idea and implement it. It is simple and virtually free, but the effects can be monumental.

I cannot wait to report back on these goals next year!

Have you ever done personal goal setting like this with your employees?

What kind of results do you think you would get?

Why would you not try this idea?

The Frying Pan

I want you to read this brief story and then answer the questions below.

Two men went fishing. One man was an experienced fisherman; the other wasn’t.

Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back.

The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing this man waste good fish. “Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?” he asked.

The inexperienced fisherman replied, “I only have a small frying pan.”

So what is the point of this story? How does this apply to the first of the year?

Well, I think there are a couple of points to be made.

Goals Too Small?

First, let’s assume your mindset is the frying pan. When opportunities or goals are put in front of you, do you throw them back or dismiss them because they are too big for your current mindset?

Is someone asking or expecting more of you than you have given before? Maybe you would like to go for it, but you are afraid because you have never done it before?

Faith Too Small?

Or, second, maybe your faith is like the frying pan. Maybe God is showing you a path that scares you because your faith is too small. Maybe you see what you should be doing differently, but you do not have the confidence that God will protect you and see you through it.

Whether it is a problem or possibility that you are facing in your work, personal, or spiritual life, I encourage you to get a bigger frying pan this year. Stretch your mindset and pray for stronger faith. Step out of your comfort zone and see what happens! You may just surprise yourself!

Are you comfortable with your 2012 goals or are they stretching you?

Are you ready to get a new frying pan in a specific area of your life?

What is holding you back? What are you going to do about that?