This Concept Will Help You Start 2024 With a BANG!

As 2023 comes to an end I want to encourage you to reflect on this year and COUNT YOUR WINS! 💪 and I'm not necessarily referring to trophies, medals, or recognitions. These are wins that can not be labelled and are often completely overlooked. ​

🧠 Our mindset has a big impact on our ability to be successful and what we choose to do in our life. It can either increase our sense of confidence and push us to achieve our goals or it can really undermine us.

We are hardwired to remember negative thoughts, emotions, and experiences better than positive ones! So, to help you set your intentions (and keep them!) for 2024, I want to propose an easy-to-implement mindset shift implementing a concept called "The Gap and The Gain" that I recently learned through a book. 

We often measure our success and progress based on ideals or what other people are doing/have done or accomplished. How many times have you said to yourself -  "I wish I had more XYZ (e.g. money, accomplishments)?" How often have you watched online videos of various trainers and thought, "I wish I had those skills," or "Geez, my dog will never be able to do that"? This way of comparison thinking is called being in the GAP, where you think primarily about where you currently are and where you want to be. In summary, you're looking at the present and the future.

Photo credit: Pete Sherrard

When you are thinking in the GAP, the "standard of success" keeps moving. It is like trying to chase the horizon in the desert – you will never get there, which can lead to unhappiness, anxiety and feeling like you are never good enough or have not attained enough no matter what you do. You lose your identity and compass and ultimately keep chasing the wrong ideals. 😔
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​Comparison is the Thief of Joy.
Theodore Roosevelt.

On the other hand, when you start to adopt a "GAIN" mindset, you measure yourself against your previous self and how far you have come. It is a form of measuring backwards, against where you were before. In summary, you are looking at the past and the present.

Remember, the future can't accurately measure your progress – it's not reality! 

Image source: Nuthawut Somsuk

"The only way to measure the distance you've travelled is by measuring from where you are back to the point where you started."

In this mindset, this reference point is internal and YOU make the call on what success is, regardless of what other people think. Thinking "In the Gain" has enormous benefits, including feelings of liberation (you have stopped comparing yourself to others), more happiness, more success, and overall less anxiety. 😁 You start to become grateful for all your experiences knowing that your choices and life are based on YOUR measurements. By focusing on measuring your own progress, you will also become more productive in accomplishing your goals. 
The best part is that this GAP AND GAIN concept can be applied to ALL areas of our lives, not just dog training! Think about where you can start implementing a GAIN mindset:

• in your professional careers
• in your health and fitness
• in your personal relationships
• in your finances
• in your quest to achieve your goals

just to name a few

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As a life example, I will turn to an experience I see at agility trials all too often; someone will come out of the ring after running with their dog and automatically focus on what went wrong: 

• the dropped bar, 
• the missed contact,
• the off-course...

This is thinking in the GAP.
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Imagine what would happen if we started to think in the GAIN, and instead, flipped the post-run narrative to what we have accomplished:

• look how far we have come!
• my dog held their startline! 
• we nailed our first dog walk in competition, or
• we had a beautiful threadle slice from a tough angle.​ ​

🤩Changing our mindset can have an enormous impact on our success level. ​

I'd like to share this short video of my girl Quinn, who's 9 years old. This was our first Q in a long time! Regardless of the Q, this run meant the world to me as it showed me how far we have come in our agility journey.  In this run....✅We kept all the bars up!
✅She was focussed and fast.  
✅We ran as a team...together, in sync.
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It’s the little wins and thinking in the GAIN about how far WE have come and not some unrealistic ideal of where she should be at her age. 

Picture credit: Amazon Canada

So, as you reflect back on 2023, I want you to compare where you are NOW versus where you were at the beginning of the year. What were your GAINS in 2023? It helps if you grab a pen and paper! It will put things in perspective and you may realize you achieved more than you thought this year! 

If you want to delve deeper into "The Gap and The Gain" concept, I invite you to purchase this book, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy by clicking here.*

I hope this has helped you reframe your thinking as you take inventory on the year that's ending. I look forward to connecting with you in the New Year. Cheers to 2024! 🍾

Disclaimer: McIntyre Canine Rehabilitation participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.ca.

About the Author

Hi, I'm Carolyn McIntyre, an animal rehabilitation trained and registered physiotherapist, and I'm the owner/operator of McIntyre Canine Rehabilitation located in Erin, Ontario, Canada.
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I am an accomplished agility competitor with 5 dogs – Quinn (Aussie) and 4 shelties - Fifty, Shades, Keeper, and Siren. I am a multiple Team Canada member who has competed overseas with my dogs Shades (WAO - World Agility Open) and Keeper – (FCI - AWC - Agility World Championships).