As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself reflecting on gratitude—not the surface-level, once-a-year kind where we go around the table and say what we’re thankful for (although I think that’s great), but the deeper, more transformative practice that changes how we show up as leaders every single day.
Here’s what I’ve noticed about high-performing leaders (and I include myself in this): We’re exceptionally good at identifying what’s not working. We can spot the gap between where we are and where we want to be from a mile away. We see what’s missing, what needs fixing, what could be better. This skill has served us well—it’s probably a big part of why we’re in leadership positions in the first place. We expect to be successful and hold ourselves to a pretty high standard.
But there’s a dark side to this gift.
Perfectionist or Entitled?
Let me paint you a picture. It’s the end of Q2, and I’m having a tough day. I’m working with our team on reviewing the previous quarter’s results and planning for the next quarter. We’re at a place as a business that I was dreaming about just a few short years prior. On top of this, I’m doing work I genuinely love, work that matters, work that makes a real difference in people’s lives.
And I’m miserable.
Why? Because I’m focusing on what we haven’t achieved yet. In my mind, every achievement we’d made and every milestone we had passed was supposed to have happened. I mean, success is the standard, right? I’d hit these incredible milestones—achievements I’d dreamed about for years—and I’d barely pause to acknowledge them before moving on to the next thing. Why celebrate what was supposed to happen?
Maybe you’re in a similar boat, finding it hard to feel grateful for what you’ve achieved or to celebrate your accomplishments. I know I did. I was raised in a society where my self-concept was built around my accomplishments and what I got done. And as a high achiever, achieving was expected. I got way more attention any time I didn’t excel than when I did. Given this mindset, the options began to feel like meeting expectations or failure. How can you ever excel if perfection is the minimum acceptable standard?
But here’s what I’ve learned: Gratitude is a powerful tool for shifting our perspective. When I stop to think about what I’ve accomplished, it actually feels more like entitlement than perfectionism if I fail to be grateful for all the people, opportunities, and support that helped me get where I am.
The Tyranny of “Not Enough”
The problem with constantly focusing on the gap—the space between where you are and where you want to be—is that you’re training your brain to fixate on insufficiency. No matter what you achieve, no matter how far you’ve come, your immediate instinct is to measure how far you still have to go.
You run one mile, but you wanted to run three. So you focus on being two miles short of your goal instead of celebrating that you ran one more mile today than you did yesterday.
Your team delivers a successful project. Instead of celebrating, you’re immediately thinking about what could have gone better, what you’ll improve next time, how this doesn’t quite measure up to the vision you had in your head.
You hit your quarterly revenue target. Rather than pausing to appreciate this win, you’re already stressed about next quarter’s even higher goal.
This pattern is exhausting. More importantly, it’s unsustainable. And it robs you of something essential to your effectiveness as a leader: the ability to acknowledge and build upon your progress.
The Power of the Gain
Here’s the alternative: Focus on the gain instead of the gap.
What does this mean? It means training yourself to be grateful for your progress, to acknowledge how far you’ve come, to celebrate the wins along the way—even the small ones. Especially the small ones.
When you focus on the gain, you’re not lowering your standards or becoming complacent. You’re simply recognizing reality: you’ve grown, you’ve improved, you’ve overcome challenges, you’ve made progress. And no matter how talented you are, it’s doubtful you did it alone And that support is worth acknowledging.
This practice does something powerful for you as a leader:
- It builds your resilience. Every time you acknowledge a gain, you’re logging an example in your mind of where you’ve grown through difficulty. The next time you hit a setback, you have a bank account full of evidence that you can overcome challenges. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again.
- It increases your self-acceptance. Most of us are incredibly hard on ourselves. We would never speak to a friend or colleague the way we speak to ourselves internally. Taking credit for progress builds up your self-acceptance, which is genuinely the thing that makes everything in your life easier.
- It makes the journey enjoyable. Your leadership journey is likely to be a long one. If you’re only allowing yourself to feel good when you reach some distant destination, you’re going to spend most of your life feeling inadequate. When you celebrate along the way, you actually get to enjoy the ride.
A Thanksgiving Challenge
As we approach Thanksgiving, I want to challenge you to do something that might feel uncomfortable at first: Take inventory of your gains.
Not the gaps. Not what’s still not done. Not how far you still have to go. The gains.
Here’s how to start:
- Tonight, write down three of your most recent accomplishments. They don’t have to be huge. Maybe you had a difficult conversation you’d been avoiding. Maybe you implemented a new process that’s making your team’s work easier. Maybe you hired someone great. Maybe you actually left work at a reasonable hour yesterday.
- Then, write down why you’re grateful those things happened. What difference did they make? How did they move you forward? What did you learn? Who helped you along the way?
- And then share your gratitude. Don’t just keep it inside, share it. Let those who helped make your accomplishments possible know that you appreciate them. Even if it’s just sharing your gratitude with a friend or loved one, acknowledge it to someone else.
Focus on the Gain
This Thanksgiving, give yourself permission to focus on the gain. Be grateful for how far you’ve come. Celebrate the wins along the way. Build up that bank account of appreciation for yourself, your colleagues and your progress.
Because here’s the truth: You are enough, right now, exactly as you are. Your worth isn’t determined by the next milestone you reach. The hustle doesn’t prove your value. And success isn’t a given.
The journey matters. And you deserve to enjoy it.
And if you need support in making this shift from gap-focused to gain-focused leadership, that’s exactly what we do at Gallaher Edge. We help leaders build the self-awareness and practices that make leadership sustainable and fulfilling.
Happy Thanksgiving. May you be as grateful for your progress as I am for mine.