Have you ever felt frustrated because no matter what you do, or how hard you try, things don’t go as you planned? If so, you’re not alone. We recently heard a story that’s a good illustration of this dynamic.

A woman went to a rehab facility to recover from her knee surgery. Rather than just watch TV between her rehab sessions, she decided to put together jigsaw puzzles. She became quite good at it.

However, when she was working on her last jigsaw puzzle, she became frustrated. No matter how hard she tried, nothing seemed to fit together like it should. She carefully studied the box cover but none of her strategies were working. The woman then realized that the puzzle pieces were in the wrong box. The box cover showed Tower Bridge in London, but the puzzle pieces were of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Like the frustration that woman felt, we can all get caught in that gap where, no matter what we do, nothing seems to work. A gap is the space between where we are and where we want to be. Gaps in our life can show up in various areas of our life. For example, maybe there’s a gap in one of your relationships. No matter how hard you try, you can’t close the gap that separates you from the other person.

Perhaps there’s a gap between where you are now and where you want to be physically. Maybe you’ve tried different diets and exercising but nothing seems to work to lose weight and keep it off. Gaps can show up in all areas of our financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual life.

There are gaps between our aspirations and reality. Gaps between our intentions and action. Gaps! Gaps! Gaps! Life could be so good if it weren’t for those blasted gaps! Why is it that so often we know what to do, but we don’t do it? As Richard Biggs said, “The greatest gap in life is between knowing and doing.” Or even worse, we know what we should do and yet do the opposite? It’s often an internal battle within ourselves.

This reminds us of a story that may be familiar to you. We’ll share it because it’s about that internal battle we can have. It’s titled: A Tale of Two Wolves.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One wolf is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, doubt, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment and lies. The other wolf is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, forgiveness, generosity, compassion, and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The wise, old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

When we’re stuck in a gap, we have choices. Success can depend on which choice you ‘feed’. One choice would be to give up. It’s often difficult to leave our comfort zone. Our internal dialogue can sound like this, “You’re not good enough to achieve that.” “Who do you think you are to even try?”

Another choice is to lower our standards/goals. Be sure that this isn’t just another time you took the ‘easy way out’ instead of disciplining yourself to do the work necessary to accomplish your goal. Remember, your beliefs will drive your behavior. A belief that consistently leads to results that are beneficial to you are beliefs to keep. Beliefs that lead to results that are damaging to you need to be reevaluated and replaced. Examples of this could be constantly missing out on promotions, consistent problems in relationships, struggling with addictions. If any of these bad results are happening to you, it’s time to reevaluate the beliefs that are driving your behaviors.

Here are more ways to ‘zap the gap’. First, identify the gap. Where are you now and where do you want to be? Next, vision what will be different when you close the gap. Then make a realistic step-by-step plan on how to move from A to B, with time frames. Next, act on those steps. Finally, have someone hold you accountable to taking those steps.

What about you? What gaps do you want to close in your life? We encourage you to take action to ‘zap the gap’. When you do, you’ll gain a renewed sense of confidence and fulfillment. Remember, you have the choice of which beliefs and behavior you ‘feed’.

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@TheBalanceCenter.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2023 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.