The Gap Between Who You Are and Who You Want to Be
Series: Upgrade Your Life — Post 1 of 6
I’ve been writing on this website since 2001.
That’s not a brag. It’s actually a little embarrassing when I think about it — because most of what I wrote in those early years was garbage. Rambling thoughts, half-baked opinions, the kind of stuff you’d cringe at if you found it in an old journal. Some of it so comical that I deleted quite a bit but I kept going. And I kept going. And I kept going.
This site is now 25 years old. Older than Facebook. Older than Twitter. Older than YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn combined. I’ve watched entire platforms rise, dominate the internet, and fade into irrelevance — while quietly publishing here, on my own little corner of the web.
Here’s what that time taught me: the person I was when I started this site and the person I am now are almost unrecognizable to each other. Not because I had some dramatic turning point. Not because I “found myself” on a trip to Thailand or read one life-changing book. It happened slowly, post by post, year by year, through one relentless, uncomfortable process.
I kept confronting the gap.
The gap is the thing nobody talks about honestly
Every self-improvement book, podcast, and Instagram motivational quote eventually gets to the same idea: become your best self. It’s a nice thing to say. But what they skip past — what they almost never address directly — is how genuinely uncomfortable it is to look at that gap between who you are right now and who you want to be.
It’s not inspiring when you first see it clearly. It’s actually kind of devastating.
When I was in my twenties, I wanted to be the kind of person who had his finances sorted. I wasn’t. I wanted to be consistent. I wasn’t. I wanted to be disciplined about my health, my relationships, my time. I was none of those things in any reliable way.
The gap was enormous. And most days, I didn’t look at it directly. I’d sort of glance at it sideways and then go do something else.
Maybe you know this feeling. You know what you want your life to look like. You can picture the version of yourself that has it together — is doing the work, showing up, not making the same dumb mistakes over and over. And then you look at where you actually are, and the distance between those two things is… a lot.
That distance? That’s the gap. And it’s where all the real work happens.
Why most people avoid it
The gap is uncomfortable for a simple reason: it requires honesty.
Not the performative, social-media kind of honesty where you post about your “struggles” to seem relatable. Real honesty. The kind where you sit down with yourself and say, okay, what am I actually doing? And is it working?
Most people avoid this because the answers aren’t great. And because once you see clearly where you’re falling short, you can’t unsee it. You become responsible for doing something about it.
It’s easier to stay vague. “I want to be healthier” is much more comfortable than “I’ve eaten like garbage for six months and I’m avoiding the doctor because I don’t want to know the numbers.” The first version lets you feel like you’re trying. The second version requires you to actually start.
I’m not saying this to judge anyone. I avoided the gap for years at a time. But every time I actually looked at it — really looked — something shifted. Not all at once. But something.
What I’ve learned from 25 years of trying
Here’s what I can tell you after two and a half decades of writing this stuff down:
The gap never fully closes. As soon as you close one version of it, you grow into a bigger version of yourself, and the gap opens up again at a higher level. This isn’t a problem. It’s actually the whole point.
Small actions compound. Starting this blog in 2001 wasn’t a grand statement. It was just writing something down. But 25 years of doing that, even inconsistently, even badly — it compounds. The same is true for every good habit, every hard conversation you don’t avoid, every time you choose the better option when the easier one is right there.
You don’t need to close the gap all at once. You just need to move in the right direction. That’s it. Direction matters more than speed.
Tools actually help. I’m not the kind of person who fetishizes productivity gear, but at some point I stopped just thinking about my goals and started writing them down — with a real system. I’ve used the Full Focus Planner for a while now, and the difference between having a structure and just winging it is real. If you don’t have a planning system, that’s worth fixing.
This series is about that work
Over the next five posts, I’m going to write about the actual, unsexy process of trying to become a better version of yourself. Not hacks. Not 10-step systems that promise to change your life in a month. Just honest writing about what I’ve tried, what’s worked, what’s failed, and what I keep coming back to.
If you’ve been reading this site for a while — thank you. Genuinely. You’ve been watching me work through this in public for years, and I don’t take that for granted.
If you’re new here — welcome. I’ve been at this longer than most platforms you’ve ever used have existed. Pull up a chair.
The gap between who you are and who you want to be isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s the most human thing there is. It means you’re paying attention. It means you care.
Now let’s actually do something about it.
This is post 1 of 6 in the Upgrade Your Life series. Next up: Why most self-improvement advice fails — and what to do instead.
David Daniels has been writing at DavidDaniels.com since 2001. Download the free life planning workbook, Write Open Act, to start mapping the gap for yourself.
