135. Why You Still Feel “Not Enough” in Midlife After Crushing Big Goals—and How to Fix It

You know that feeling when you should be celebrating—but instead, you're mentally already onto the next thing?

You hit a milestone—moved into a new house, crushed a personal challenge, finished a retreat—and instead of basking in your badassery, your brain starts whispering: "Yeah, but what now?" or worse, "That wasn’t enough."

In this solo episode, I (Laurie) invite you into a mindset shift that high-achieving women in midlife desperately need: moving from the Gap (what you haven’t done) to the Gain (how far you’ve already come).

This one is personal. I share real-life examples from:

• My recent move (so many boxes, so many metaphorical mic drops)
• The brutal-but-beautiful 29029 TRAIL challenge
• A business retreat that almost sent me into a shame spiral—until someone reminded me of the badass things I'd already done

You'll walk away with:

• The 4 key questions to help you catch when you're stuck in the Gap
• A journaling prompt that will shift your whole damn week
• How to celebrate your wins without disclaimers (ahem—stop talking people out of complimenting your sweater)
• And why “starting from experience” beats “starting from scratch” every. single. time.

If you're a high-achieving midlife woman who’s secretly exhausted from always striving and never arriving—this episode is your permission slip to flip the script.

💥 You don’t need to do more to be worthy.
 💥 You just need to notice how far you’ve already come.

Links & Mentions:

• The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

📌 Take It Further:

1. Share this episode with your ambitious AF bestie who never gives herself credit. She needs this.
2. DM me on Instagram: When have you caught yourself in the gap? How did you shift back into the gain?

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Transcript

[00:00:00] You know that feeling when you've just hit, you know that feeling when you've just hit a big goal. You've moved, you ran the race, you launched the thing, you earned the promotion, and instead of celebrating your very next thought is what now? What next? Why don't I feel better than this? And you're immediately onto the next thing.

Or maybe you're working on a big goal or chasing a big dream, and all you can focus on is how far you still have to go. How long is it gonna take for you to get there? As high achieving midlife women, we tend to focus on how much more we have to do instead of how far we've come. In today's episode, I wanna talk to you.

In today's episode, I wanna talk with you about the difference between living in the gap. And living in the gain, and how this simple mindset shift has changed everything for me. Let's get into it.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie [00:01:00] Reynoldson.

This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. 

Hey friends. Welcome back to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson, the founder of the School of Midlife, and a woman currently recording this episode from my brand new office. If you are watching the video replay, then yes, you can see that there is absolutely nothing on the walls. I do have this cute little plant on my desk.

So there are signs of life [00:02:00] here and um, there are signs that I am starting to unpack some things. But there's still plenty of unpacked boxes at this house. Yes, I am moving, this is my brand new office studio. We're gonna call it Progress Over Perfection for this week, and we're gonna call that good.

In this week's episode, I wanna talk to you about a concept that has been pretty transformational for me, and I think it will be for you too.

It's called The Gap in the Gain, and it comes from a book by Dan Sullivan. The core idea in the book is this, the gap is when you measure yourself against the ideal. Which is maybe the dream, the goal, the finish line that you haven't quite reached yet, and how far you still have to go to attain that dream or goal or finish line.

The gain on the other hand is when you measure yourself against your starting point. When you recognize and celebrate how [00:03:00] far you've already come. Can you see the difference there?

In the book, Sullivan offers a new way. And the gap in the gain is essentially this new way for high achievers to operate that, as Sullivan Claims, serves us better than how we typically operate our default programming. Because as high achievers usually we set goals and we focus on where we are now and how much farther we have to go. How much do we actually have to do? How much longer is it gonna take to achieve the goal or make the big dream a reality?

Can you relate to that? I bet can. I mean, we've all been there.

According to Sullivan in the book, that how much farther the, how much longer the, how much more, That's the gap. So if the gap, which is our standard response, our default response, [00:04:00] if the gap is our standard response, then what's the alternative?

And according to Sullivan, it's the gain. The gain focuses on how far we've already come. Basically, there is present day you who is so much wiser and experienced and successful. So much more of a badass. Basically insert your favorite superlative, but you in a different position as present day you than you were as former you.

You have come so far to get to present day you Are you future you yet? No, of course not, but we shouldn't not celebrate the fact that you have already come so far. That's the gain. 

How, how does this play out in real life? Say for instance, you have a fitness goal to lose weight or lower your [00:05:00] cholesterol.

Most of us tend to focus on those 10 or 15 pounds that you still have to lose instead of the 30 pounds that you've already lost. Or you tend to focus on the 10 to 15 pounds that you still have to lose instead of the lean muscles that you've built and that you can actually see when you look in the mirror. You know that your clothes are fitting differently.

So yeah, maybe you still have a ways to go, but you've already come so far. That's the gain. Focusing on the gain is so much different than focusing on the gap between where you are now and those 10 or 15 additional pounds that you wanna lose. You see that?

Similarly with cholesterol, if you are like me and many midlife women are, because what they're finding is that a lack of estrogen or a drop in estrogen, it has this inverse effect with cholesterol [00:06:00] and it just like shoots it through the roof. So if you're like me and you would like to lower your cholesterol and you want to maybe avoid taking medication, I personally have focused on my eating. I've dialed in my hormones. I've taken really big strides to significantly lower my cholesterol and it's working, which is a huge gain. Huge gain. Because my cholesterol super duper high just a year and a half ago. It's still high, but it's not super duper high. And if I'm going off of the European schedule on where my cholesterol should be, I'm actually doing pretty well. And so we'll, we'll call that a win. But I do have heart disease in my family, so I want to be mindful of reducing my cholesterol.

It's gonna serve me a lot better to celebrate the [00:07:00] eating, the hormones , to this point to lower my cholesterol. Focusing on the gain is gonna serve me a lot better than looking how much farther I have to come on the health journey, or how long is it going to take me to lower the cholesterol even more. That's the gap.

A lot of us do the same thing when we're working towards retirement. How many more years am I gonna have to work at this job? The gap, right? Versus look at this amazing career that I've had, the opportunities it's given me to provide for my family financially. I've been able to mentor young women. I've learned skills that will serve me my entire life.

Maybe even help me out in whatever next career, or my act three, whatever it is I'm working towards. The gain, right? The gap is how much longer; the gain is look at what I've already done.[00:08:00] 

I'll say that as high achieving women, we tend to discount how much we've already done in our life; right. A lot of us have done a lot.

We went to school, we got a job, we got married, we bought a house. Maybe we had some kids and raised them up. We got promoted at work. On this podcast, I talk about that as being the success checklist, and sure, sometimes we feel constrained by the success checklist.

But also if you followed that checklist and many of us have because we thought it was expected of us, aren't you amazed by how much you've already done and accomplished in your life? Like really? I mean if you did another, if you did not achieve another goal, wouldn't you be super accomplished already? Wouldn't you be super high achieving already? The answer's yes; Right. I [00:09:00] spoke at the Breakfast Club a couple weeks ago, and I talked with a woman who was interested in coming to the Best Life retreat.

And I was talking all about it, and the one thing that was holding her back is she said, but I'm not a high achieving woman. And I said, i'm calling bullshit on that. What do you mean you're not a high achieving woman? And she said, well, you know, I, I don't know. I just, I'm not a high achiever.

Listen, this has nothing to do, When I say high achieving, this has nothing to do with grades that you earned in school or the dollars that you make on your paycheck or what your job title is. If you have gone to school, got a job, bought a house, had a family, um, if you have done any or all of those things, you are a high achieving woman, whether you. [00:10:00] Like to think of yourself that way or not. Whether you paint yourself with that crayon or not. I mean, think about how your life could have gone otherwise if you weren't so motivated. If you weren't so interested in taking care of yourself and your family and providing for each other. You, you could have a completely different life, but you've chosen to do something incredible with your life, even if we have no idea what your name is, even if you are not a published author, even if you are not the head of a company, you the, the fact that you're following that success checklist, damn straight, you are a high achieving woman.

And I will say, if any of you are telling yourself a similar story, that you're not a high achieving woman, I'm gonna call bullshit on that too. Because if you really think about yourself and your life and what you have already done, [00:11:00] the, you need to step into the gain, my friend. I mean, because. Of course, yes, there is plenty more that you can do and achieve and accomplish. I get that. There, There is always going to be a gap, but holy hell, look at the gain. Seriously, take a minute and look back at your life and focus on the gain.

I get it though. It's easy to live in the gap. For most of us, that's been our default because we are so accustomed to hitting a milestone, pausing maybe for a day, and then we're immediately onto the next. Our brain is already calculating the next bigger thing because we're not there yet.

Wherever the fuck there is. I mean, where is it that we're going and where we're in such a hurry to get there, but it's because we're wired to chase. We're [00:12:00] taught that forward progress equals worth, that resting is lazy. And that celebrating our accomplishments is self-indulgent. It's quite a story that we've been given, isn't it?

But let me tell you this, staying in the gap is gonna rob you of every bit of joy in any of your accomplishments. You gotta live in the gain because that simple mindset shift that can change your whole damn life. Let me show you what I mean.

Fortunately or unfortunately, maybe , I've had a chance to put this into practice several times this summer. Most recently with moving, as you know, I just moved. We're still in the process of unpacking, but at least my bed is set up at the new house. I'm recording this episode in my new office.

When we were moving, there came a time where we took [00:13:00] everything out of every cupboard, cabinet, drawer, closet, anywhere that it could be stored. We took it out and put it in the middle of the room, or on the kitchen counter, or on the bathroom counter, or in the living room floor. Right. So for weeks we were packing boxes and we stored those boxes in the garage of our new house.

But there came a time where everything that was still left in the old house was on the kitchen counter or in the middle of the living room. And every morning I would come downstairs and I would look at that kitchen counter and I would look at that living room floor completely defeated. And I kept saying, God damn, we still have a lot more, more to move.

We still have this to pack. We have to clean that out. We've gotta get everything outta the house for the photographer to come so we can get the [00:14:00] house on the market. I mean, I was so in the gap because it, it just felt like there was still so much more to do. But then I caught myself because the truth is we had already moved a ton.

So much. Everything was literally out of the cabinets and the closets and the cupboards and the drawers. I mean, think about it. We as humans store so much out of sight, right? That there's a reason that you have cabinets in your garage so that you can just put all the shit in there and shut the door, and then you can drive in and out in your car and just not worry about it and never have to look at it. We, we have storage units so that we can store stuff away from where we're at.

Cabinets and drawers and closets and, and cupboards, I mean, [00:15:00] we'd already packed so much. Really the only stuff that was left on the kitchen counter and on the living room floor was all that random shit that you don't really know what to do with. Like, should I pack this? Should I donate it? I mean, we were down to the last couple pickup truck loads of stuff.

So we'd been busting our asses for weeks.

I needed to change my perspective, and I finally caught myself, which was not how much more do we have to do? I needed to change my perspective, look at everything we have already done. I had to look at the gain, and it was such a mindset shift for me, and it changed everything, My entire outlook on the move.

Same thing happened during the 29 0 2 9 challenge this summer. Um, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go a couple of episodes [00:16:00] back. Listen to the episode when I talk about the 29 0 2 9 challenge, it was, it was a big deal. Three marathons plus and three days in Park City, Utah. Big undertaking.

I remember at day two, we were at an aid station at mile seven and someone said, we still have 20 miles to go today. And I thought, yeah, but we, we hiked 27 miles yesterday and we're already seven miles in today. That's 34 freaking miles that we've gone. Do you see the difference between her thinking the gap and my thinking, the gain.

And that didn't happen just once in that event. In fact, in fact, if you ask my hiking buddies how many times I referenced the gap and the gain, they're gonna tell you I did it a whole hell of a lot.

Even on day three, [00:17:00] the hottest and the longest day of the entire event. At the halfway point on day three, give or take a little bit because it feels like the halfway eight point, but I didn't actually look it up, but we, halfway point day three, we had to hike up a ski run. Super steep. Super hot. I remember just hearing all of the grumbles from so many other hikers at the bottom of that pitch. They were completely deflated.

I mean, we'd been doing this for three days. We are, we're on day three at this point. They did not wanna have to hike up a ski run at that point in the event. They were also not only thinking, I gotta get my ass up this very steep hill, but after I do that. I still have a long way to go to get to the finish line.

I approached it a little differently. I was more in the gain, But pretty much that whole [00:18:00] entire event. And when I wasn't in the gain, I would immediately notice it and flip the script. I would get myself back to the gain and out of the gap as quickly as I could.

So here I am at the bottom of that ski run. I'm thinking about how far we have already come over two days and we're halfway through day three. I kept saying to myself, I didn't come this far just to come this far, and I am so proud of what I've accomplished already.

Did that mile plus hike up the ski run suck? Yep, absolutely it did. But when I made it to the top, I couldn't help but celebrate the gain. I even took a picture of it. It, for me, it was the perfect metaphor for the gap and the gain. I mean. The whole event was of course, but this particular incline, you could either stop at the bottom and think, oh my God, look at how much more we have to go. [00:19:00] Or you could get your ass up the top, look back and think, I did that. Look at how far I've come. It it to me, it was just the perfect metaphor of the gap and the gain. 

And then last month, I mean, I swear this has been coming up all summer for me, but last month when I went to a business retreat with my coach, I walked into the hotel ballroom. You know how those conferences, conventions, retreats are where you have 200 people in a room, and so I walk in to the ballroom on day one.

And the whole time flying there, getting ready that morning, honestly, I was, I was feeling a little defeated. I kept thinking that I had left the April retreat with all of these ideas about new offers I was going to offer at the School of Midlife. I was gonna launch a bunch of new products. There were some different [00:20:00] things that I wanted to try in the business. And I had done none of it.

And I was actually questioning why I was even at the retreat. I mean, cue that shame spiral, right? Anybody been in that? Or you just kind of keep going down the spiral, thinking of all the things you should have done and why didn't you do that?

And just as I'm walking in on day one, a friend walks by and she says, congratulations!

And I looked at her and I said, on what?

Literally, I, I mean, I was so unimpressed with myself at that point. There was so much that I wanted to do that I hadn't done. There was so much that I had told myself that I was going to do. I had, I'd even told other people in April, and I hadn't done any of them. None of it. Zero. Zero, zilch.

And she responded with, didn't you just finish a [00:21:00] huge endurance event? And I was like, right, yes I did.

Do you, do you see how I was completely operating in the gap? In the four months since the April retreat, I had completed the 29029 TRAIL challenge. We'd bought a house. I'd spent some time helping with my mother-in-law. I'd created some space for rest and recovery, and a little bit of breathing room after the TRAIL challenge. That's not nothing.

Sure, it's not where I thought I was gonna be going into the retreat. It's not where I wanted to be going into the retreat. But I still had done so much. I'd experienced so much in the four months between the April retreat and the August retreat. That's worth celebrating.

I mean, that's way more than former me probably thought was even possible. [00:22:00] That's worth celebrating, that's the gain.

And you probably have some examples in your own life, right? Think about it. Are there instances where you've been so focused on the gap that you lose sight of the gain?

As high achieving women, we are especially prone to the gap because we've been conditioned that our worth is tied to our output. So when we finish one thing, we are immediately chase to the next thing. Because the last win didn't feel as good as we thought it would. So we go bigger or we go faster, or we get louder. And when that doesn't work either, then sometimes we assume that we're the problem.

But it's not us. It's the metric. We're using the wrong measuring stick. Maybe we're looking at the wrong goal line, and that could be the one that we seem to move every time we get closer to it.

For [00:23:00] those of you who hike like me, have you ever experienced, when you get closer to the top of the hill, it seems like it's farther away. Like it just seems like it keeps moving farther away, right? Yeah.

We do that a lot. We change the metric, we move the goal line. Which leaves us never feeling like we've arrived. That we've accomplished the thing that. That anything is done. That's what living in the gap is.

On the other hand, we've got the gain. And don't get me wrong here, it's not about settling. It's not lowering your standards. It's more about raising your awareness. It's about recognizing that you're not starting from scratch. You're starting from experience.

When you measure backward, so [00:24:00] current you looks back and looks at former you and everything that you've learned and accomplished up until that point, you start to trust yourself more.

You start to relax a little bit. You get to the point where you stop feeling like you constantly have to prove yourself. Does that resonate?

And what's what's really interesting is you start gaining momentum from peace and not pressure. I don't know about you, but when I look at how much more I have to do or how much longer I have to work or how much farther I have to go, all of those are gap thinking, of course, it feels like there's a lot of pressure. Like it's heavy.

I, but the gain. There's, there's almost a lightness to it. It, it's kind of celebratory. It's, feels like it's based more in gratitude and experience, and it feels more [00:25:00] optimistic. It just feels different.

If you're nodding along right now, and I'm sure many of you are, I wanna offer a couple of ways that have worked for me to, to get myself to shift into the gain.

Number one, take inventory. Think about what you've accomplished up to this point. And if that's too long of a container, just think about the last 90 days. What have you done at work? What have you done in life? What have, like, what have you done in your last 90 days? And it doesn't have to be anything that anybody else would celebrate or even notice.

If it's important to you and you've done it in the last 90 days, you need to celebrate that. Write it down, see it in black and white. And if you, if you need some help like jogging your, your memory, go back through your calendar. Go back [00:26:00] through the photos on your phone. Because maybe you didn't write it down or take notice of it at that point, but you probably took a picture of it. Take an inventory of all that you have gained in the last 90 days.

Number two, you can, if you're a journaler, here's a prompt for you: "If I only focused on how far I've come, how would I show up differently this week?"

If you didn't have the pressure of going farther, doing more, figuring out what is next, but if you just focused on how far you'd come, how would you show up differently this week? Write that down. Journal on it. See what comes up for you.

Number three, celebrate without disclaimers. What do I mean by that? A lot of us say, I know it's not much, and we [00:27:00] kind of poo-poo it. Instead, we need to own our own success. I did this. Hell, yes, I did this. Look at what I did. Look at who I am. Look at what I experienced, look at what I've, I look at this, right? Look at the gain.

When somebody pays you a compliment, similarly, don't just shut them down. When somebody says, I love your sweater. Oh, this old thing, it's no big deal. No, they're paying you a compliment. Think about the gain. Thank them. Appreciate it.

Celebrate without the disclaimers. You don't have to talk people out of things. You can own your success. You can be proud of yourself, and you don't have to minimize yourself or your accomplishments to make other people feel good themselves. Own it. Own your success, even if it looks small. Maybe particularly if it looks small [00:28:00] because it's important to you.

Number four, catch the gap in real time. This is the one that really has helped me. If I am able to recognize that I am in the gap, I am able to immediately shift into the gain.

And the quicker that you can do that, the better. But this is something that it's, it's a learned habit because we've got so many decades of conditioning looking, you know, staying in the gap, that is our default. So when you hear yourself saying like, I haven't done enough, or I'm not as far as I'd like to be, or it's taking me longer than I thought it would, or I should be farther along by now, or whatever judgment you seem to be measuring yourself against.... when you notice that you're doing it, I want you to stop and ask yourself. I haven't done enough. Not enough. Compared to what? Compared to [00:29:00] when?

When you find yourself saying, it's taking me longer then I thought, ask yourself, taking you longer compared to what? Compared to when. When you find yourself saying, I should be farther along, then I want you to ask yourself, compared to who? Compared to when? Just noticing is gonna make a huge difference.

You'll ultimately get to the point where you can notice it and immediately shift your thinking. I promise you, it is a huge game changer, noticing the gap. Immediately changing to the gain. It changes everything.

I think. Lastly, what I want you to remember as you try on this gap and gain mindset, shift for yourself to see what you think about it, if it works, I want you to remember that no matter where you are, you are exactly where you should be. You're not behind, you're not late, you're not lacking. You are on a [00:30:00] path, your path. You have come so far and you don't have to chase anything else to prove your worth. 'cause you're worthy, now. You're worthy just as you are.

I would invite you, going forward to live in the gain. because I have experienced that that for me, that's where the peace lives. That's where confidence lives, and with that peace and confidence, and courage and clarity, that's when you really can start living your best life. That's when you can step into making midlife your best life.

Because you are celebrating how far you've come. You're no longer focusing on how far you have to go. You are celebrating what brought you exactly to the spot that you [00:31:00] are today, and that is so important. Probably the most important.

I would love to hear your experiences with the gap and the gain. Many of you have read this book. We talked, we actually had a book club discussion about it. I would love to know where this is showing up in your life, how you have maybe changed your life by adopting this gap and the gain mindset. Shoot me a DM on social, send me an email, reach out to me. Let me know how has the gap and the gain changed your life. 

With that, I'm gonna sign off. Thank you so much for being here today. I will see you on Friday when This week's guest episode drops. And I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care.

 Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, [00:32:00] could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. 

So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.