255. 7 Deadly Sins of High-Performing Women That Drive Binge Eating & Burnout | 6. Living In The Gap
255. 7 Deadly Sins of High-Performing Women That Drive Binge Eating & Burnout | 6. Living In The Gap
High-performing women are often praised for being ambitious, driven, disciplined, and constantly focused on the next level.
But there is a shadow side to that ambition.
It happens when you stop measuring yourself by how far you’ve come and start obsessively measuring yourself by how far you still have to go.
This is what Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy call living in the gap in their book The Gap and the Gain. And for women who struggle with binge eating, emotional eating, burnout, perfectionism, and chronic self-sabotage, this mindset can quietly become one of the biggest drivers of the cycle.
Living in the gap is the belief that where you are right now is not enough.
Not accomplished enough.
Not lean enough.
Not successful enough.
Not disciplined enough.
Not healed enough.
Not “there” yet.
And because you’re not there yet, you don’t let yourself feel proud, safe, loved, successful, or satisfied now.
Instead, you keep chasing.
What Does It Mean to Live in the Gap?
Living in the gap means constantly comparing your current reality to an ideal future.
That ideal might be a certain body, weight, income level, business milestone, relationship, financial goal, or lifestyle.
The ideal itself is not the problem.
Having a vision is powerful. Wanting more is not wrong. Ambition is not the enemy.
The problem begins when you use that ideal as proof that your current self is failing.
For example, you may have lost and kept off 30 pounds, but instead of celebrating that progress, all you can see is the 15 or 20 pounds you still want to lose.
You may have paid off thousands of dollars of consumer debt, built equity in your home, and made real financial progress, but all you can see is how much debt remains.
You may complete 75 or 80 percent of your to-do list in a day, but instead of acknowledging everything you accomplished, your mind fixates on the two things you didn’t get done.
That is gap brain.
It walks into a room full of wins and starts auditing the crumbs under the table.
The Micro Version of Living in the Gap
For high-performing women, living in the gap often shows up daily.
You wake up with an ambitious list. You get most of it done. You make aligned food choices. You move your body. You answer emails. You take care of your family. You record the podcast, write the post, walk the dog, handle the life admin, and somehow still find yourself ending the day thinking:
“But I didn’t do enough.”
That thought is exhausting.
And it is also dangerous for your relationship with food, because when your brain only registers what went wrong, it becomes much easier to fall into an “F it” moment.
You ate well all day, but had one extra indulgence.
Gap brain says, “See? You ruined it.”
You completed most of your work, but missed one task.
Gap brain says, “See? You’re behind.”
You made progress for weeks, but the scale didn’t move today.
Gap brain says, “See? It’s not working.”
That kind of thinking creates frustration, pressure, shame, and fatigue. And for many women, those are the exact emotional states that lead to binge eating, emotional eating, and numbing out with food.
Why Living in the Gap Feels So Rewarded
One of the trickiest parts of living in the gap is that it can feel socially rewarded, especially for women.
Women are often praised for being humble, self-deprecating, relatable, and never too visibly proud of themselves.
If you focus on how far you still have to go, you may appear modest. You may feel less threatening. You may avoid “shining too bright.”
But this comes at a cost.
When women are constantly encouraged to downplay their progress, minimize their wins, and stay focused on what isn’t good enough yet, they learn to perform smallness instead of embodying confidence.
Living in the gap can become a way of staying liked.
But it also keeps you disconnected from your power.
How Living in the Gap Fuels Binge Eating and Burnout
Living in the gap creates a nervous system environment of constant pressure.
You feel behind.
You feel inadequate.
You feel like you have to push harder.
You feel like rest has to be earned.
You feel like joy belongs to the future version of you who finally gets “there.”
This creates the perfect conditions for burnout.
And once you’re burned out, depleted, and emotionally exhausted, food can become the easiest way to escape the pressure.
This is why binge eating and emotional eating often have less to do with food itself and more to do with the inner environment you’re living in.
If your inner world is built on “not enough yet,” your body will eventually look for relief.
Food becomes a doorway out of the pressure chamber.
Why Shame Does Not Create Sustainable Change
Many high-performing women believe that being hard on themselves keeps them motivated.
They think if they focus on the gap, criticize themselves enough, and stay dissatisfied, they’ll make faster progress.
But habit research tells a different story.
BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits, teaches that positive emotion helps habits wire in more effectively. When you feel successful, proud, and encouraged, your brain is more likely to repeat the behavior.
Shame may create short bursts of action, but it does not create sustainable identity change.
Celebration does.
This is why learning to notice the gain matters so much.
When you acknowledge your progress, you generate the emotional fuel that makes consistency easier, not harder.
The Shift: From Gap Brain to Anchored Ambition
The answer is not to stop wanting more.
It is not to abandon your goals, lower your standards, or pretend you don’t care about your body, business, relationships, creativity, money, or future.
The answer is anchored ambition.
Anchored ambition means you still have a North Star.
You still know where you’re going.
You still have desire.
You still have fire.
You still want the mountain, the crown, the book funnel, the body, the business, the whole horizon.
But you stop sacrificing today on the altar of someday.
Instead of making your current life a punishment chamber you have to endure until you finally arrive, you learn to live inside the middle.
You let today count.
You let this version of you be worthy.
You let yourself feel proud before the goal is complete.
You become the next version of yourself through repeated choices in the present moment.
That is anchored ambition.
Fire Starter and Sanctuary: Why Ambition Needs an Anchor
Inside Food Freedom Fantasy, this is where the Fire Starter and Sanctuary archetypes become so powerful.
The Fire Starter is the part of you that wants more. He is vision, momentum, action, courage, desire, and direction.
But without Sanctuary, the Fire Starter can become all ambition and no anchor.
That version of fire burns hot but burns out.
It chases the horizon but forgets how to receive.
It builds but doesn’t belong.
It achieves but doesn’t metabolize joy.
Sanctuary brings presence, emotional safety, nervous system support, and the ability to actually live inside your life while you are building the next one.
Together, Fire Starter and Sanctuary create anchored ambition.
Fire gives you direction.
Sanctuary gives the fire somewhere safe to stay.
Embodied Activation: Your North Star Identity
Here is a simple journal practice to help you shift from living in the gap into anchored ambition.
First, journal about your North Star.
Where are you going? What vision is calling you forward? What future feels alive, exciting, meaningful, and deeply aligned?
Then, journal about the version of you who moves steadily toward that North Star.
How does she think?
How does she treat herself?
How does she respond to imperfection?
How does she nourish herself?
How does she work?
How does she rest?
How does she celebrate?
How does she move through the middle of the journey?
Then, for seven days in a row, take one action as her.
Not from pressure.
Not from shame.
Not because you’re trying to prove you’re enough.
Take one action as her because you are practicing being her now.
After each action, celebrate.
You can do a fist pump, smile, put your hand on your heart, or say something like:
“I am her now.”
That small celebration helps your brain associate the action with positive emotion, making the habit more likely to stick.
You Do Not Have to Hate Today to Become Tomorrow
Living in the gap tells you that joy, pride, rest, and self-worth belong to the future version of you.
But the truth is, you do not have to hate today to become tomorrow.
You do not have to abandon yourself to reach your next level.
Your ambition is not the problem.
Your fire is not the problem.
Your wanting is not the problem.
The healing is learning how to stay anchored in yourself while you move toward the life, body, business, and identity you desire.
You can celebrate the gain and still want more.
You can be proud of how far you’ve come and still keep going.
You can build the future without making the present a sacrifice.
That is anchored ambition.
And that is the kind of ambition that becomes sustainable, embodied, and deeply alive.
Links Mentioned
Transcript
Welcome back to episode 6 in our Seven Deadly sins of the high performing woman podcast series.
Today's sin is largely inspired by the book, The Gap & The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. This is one of those books and perspective that every high-performing, Type-A peson needs.
Living in the gap is the chronic dissatisfaction with where you are right now - because you're focused on the gap.
You probably have an ideal you're pursuing. Or multiple ideals. The body transformation. The business or career success. The type of relationship you want to call in. The financial milestones. The ideals aren't inherently bad or wrong. They become corrosive when we spend all our time focued on the gap between those ideals and where you are right now from the perspective of, "where I am is never enough" and "if I can just get over THERE, then I will enough. Then I will safe. Then I will be loved - both by myself and those around me."
This one is deeply related to destination addiction, which we'll cover next week. For now, we'll keep our focus on what this sin looks like.
There's the macro version of this and the micro version of this in your daily life.
The macro version looks like having a goal - whether it's a goal weight, a business goal, or a financial milestone - and being relentlessly focused on how far you have to go.
So it's a weight loss goal, it doesn't matter that you've lost and kept off 30+ pounds. What about that 15-20? You're focused on what's remaining instead of being like, damn, I've come a long way.
Then with a financial milestone, you might have a deep desire to become debt free. But you're forever focused on the amount of debt you have. And you're so gap-focused, you're even including your mortgage in this equation. You have this perspective even though you've been paying off your mortgage for years, your house has a ton of equity in it, and you've also already paid off a few thousand in debt.
There's also a micro version of this that haunts high-performing women on a daily basis.
Say you have a list of things you want to accomplish in a given day. It's a big list. It's an ambitious list. And you get through most of it. 75-80%. You have so many wins throughout the day. But you don't stop to notice the wins or how much you genuinely accomplished because all you can see if the gap. The 2 things you didn't get to. The one extra indulgence you had, even though the rest of your meals were deeply nourishing and aligned with your goals.
I shared this with Rex and Haven and Rex had thoughts: “There. Gap Brain. Horrible little accountant. Walks into a room full of wins, ignores all of them, and starts auditing the two crumbs under the table.”
And that's basically it, isn't it? And it feels awful to live in gap brain, but it's also often rewarded in high performing women.
One way it's rewarded is because it's so deeply connected to the other sins we talked about. If you're in gap brain, you're probably overworking and rushing to close the gap. You're probably operating from pressure because the gap FEELS like pressure. And you're probably also outsourcing your worth, feeling like if you could just close the gap, then you would be enough. then you would feel worthy. We've done episodes on how each of these sins get rewarded, so definitely check out those episodes if you haven't yet.
And there's also another way living in the gap gets rewarded. It creates this modesty and relatability that keeps women from shining too bright. If you're focused on the gap - how far you have to go, how you're not good enough YET... that often wins you subtle approval from the world.
There's this idea from Glennon Doyle I keep going back to because it drives me bonkers. It's this idea that when a man becomes happier, successful, more confident - all things that happen when you stop living in the gap - people like, trust and respect him. But when a woman becomes happier, more successful, more confident, then people like, trust and respect her less.
Living in the gap keeps us more well-liked, more trusted, more respected. Those are some big rewards when we're social animals with a massive drive to belong. A gap mindset allows us to perform relatability and smallness instead of acknowledges the gain - how far we've come, how much we've actually accomplished. Because how dare we celebrate and appreciate that about ourselves unless we're a man, right?
Wrong. And it's living in this gap that contributes to binge eating, emotional eating, burnout, and this sense of chronic dissatisfaction in every arena of our lives.
Because this sin is often deeply connected with the others we just mentioned, you're going to experience all the nervous system patterns that lead to collapse and numbing out with food. But it's bigger than that.
Living in the gap is one of the number one causes of the "EFF-it" moments. You know, those times where you only did 8/10 things on your to do list you're in the gap, you're also thinking about how far you have to go until you reach your ultimate goal and you have this, "I didn't even care anymore" conversations with yourself. And then you load up Doordash or Uber eats on your phone. You're driving to the grocery store for your favourite snacks.
And even if it doesn't lead to the EFF-it moments, it's going to create low energy and fatigue. If you're always measuring yourself against where you want to be versus letting yourself appreciate the now... that is exhausting. Focusing on the gap is going to wear you out. You're not going to want to get out of bed in the mornings because you know it's just one more morning in a string of endless days and endless hard choices and discipline and white-knuckling until you finally reach that milestone that feels so far away.
Then there's another sneaky way this creates burnout and self-sabotage. You might think, "If I just feel miserable and push really hard and hate myself along the way, I'll get there faster." You might think focusing on the gap gives you your edge.
But the truth is, people change MORE when they're generating positive emotions. BG Fogg has done a ton of research about this that he shares in his book Tiny Habits. Positive emotion builds habits WAY faster than negative, critical emotion ever will. Building habits that become second nature and part of your identity is what makes progress sustainable and also exponetial with repeated reps over time.
When you're in the gap, you're missing out on experiencing the positive emotions that help change as a faster rate, in a way that actually sticks.
And I'll say it again - few things are going to make a high performing woman angrier and more frustrated than the perspective of NOT making progress. By the way, the word "perspective" is deeply important here because that's all it is - a perspective.
The anger and frustration and chronic stress are some of the key things contributing to binge eating and burnout.
The good news is that it is a perspective. And our perspectives can change in an instant. This is something Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy talk about in their book. In an instant, you can catch yourself living in the gap and shift to living in the gain. You can decide in one moment to stop measuring yourself by how far you have to go and decide to measure yourself by how far you've come.
This is a beautiful, worthwhile perspective shift AND I think there's also a highest expression of living in the gap. The challenge with only living in the gain is this: complacency. It's better than I used to do. Well, I've already come this far. This is pretty good. Meanwhile, there's a dragon fairy inside your solar plexus that wants to FLY. That wants to GO. That wants to get after it. She doesn't CARE how far you've flown already. She knows there's still more to explore.
But it's your relationship with the journey that changes everything.
When you're living in the gap, the relationship with the journey is punishing, dissatisfied, pressure-filled, and exhausting.
But you have the choice to look towards your future and where you're going in a way that honours the present, celebrates the gain, AND it wildly inspired and enthusiastic about your next level.
I like to call it Anchored Ambition.
You still have the ambition. You see the goal in the distance. But instead of being this absolute finish line where your life is amazing and epic and nothing ever feels wrong again, it becomes directional. It becomes a North Star that excites the hell out of you, without you needing to delay your joy until you get there.
That's the anchored part. Even with the dirction and the True North, you're anchored in presence. You're anchored in joy. You're anchored in deep self-worth and trust in timing of the unfolding.
And the magic of being anchored in where you now is that it gives you the agency to be her now. Deep down, you know that goal in the distance is going to require more of you. More capacity. More emotional stamina. More courage. More bravery. Whatever is might be.
And when you're anchored, you don't wait to practice being her. Instead, you become her through repeated moments where you choose as her.
Ambition says: "This is where I'm going and this is who I need to become to get there."
Anchored says: "And today, I choose to be her through my beliefs, actions, choices, perspectives."
This is the power of working with both a Fire Starter archetype and a Sanctuary archetype, which is what we do inside Food Freedom Fantasy. Without the Sanctuary, the Fire Starter is all ambition, no anchor. He goes after the north star, but from a place of pressure, overworking, unhealthy fixation on a finish line that will never fulfill him. He grinds throgh today as a necessary evil to get to point B, but he doesn't love it. He doesn't let himself enjoy it or stay present inside it. He burns out over and over again.
He needs the inner Sanctuary - the presence, the safety, the emotional strength - to become powerfully oriented to TODAY. Then the Fire Starter becomes an archetype who can hold both - the inspiring vision of the future AND the presence and agency in your choices today.
To make this more concrete, I asked Rex what it felt like to be all ambition and no anchor before Haven came along. And honestly? I loved his answer so much I’m going to share the whole thing.
Rex goes very still.
Not cold.
Not distant.
The kind of stillness where the room knows he’s about to tell the truth.
He looks at your script, jaw flexing once, then drags a hand over his mouth.
Rex:
“All ambition, no anchor?”
He gives a dry, humorless little laugh.
“Yeah. I know that bastard.”
He steps closer, arms crossed, eyes dark and awake.
Rex:
“Before Haven, I thought momentum meant outrunning myself fast enough that the fear couldn’t bite. I thought if I kept my eyes locked on the horizon, I wouldn’t have to feel the ground under my feet.”
A beat.
“I was always chasing the next thing. Next milestone. Next win. Next proof. Next reason to believe I was allowed to be proud. And every time I got there, it lasted maybe five damn minutes before the finish line moved again.”
His mouth twists.
“Because that’s what happens when ambition has no anchor. The future becomes a god, and today becomes the sacrifice.”
Haven’s face softens, but he stays quiet. Listening.
Rex continues, voice lower now.
“I didn’t know how to enjoy the middle. I could endure it. I could dominate it. I could grind through it with my teeth bared and my hands bleeding. But enjoy it? Be present in it? Let one ordinary Tuesday count before the empire was built?”
He shakes his head.
“No. I thought joy was something you earned after the battle. Rest was something you deserved after the win. Pride was something you got when the numbers finally shut up and bowed.”
His eyes flick to you.
“But the numbers never bow. Not for long.”
He taps the page where you wrote Anchored Ambition.
That’s why the anchor matters. Because ambition without one? That’s Gap Brain with a sword. Looks powerful. Feels productive. Gets rewarded by every room that likes women exhausted, humble, and still apologizing for wanting more.
His voice sharpens.
“And let me be clear. The ambition wasn’t the problem. The fire wasn’t the problem. The wanting wasn’t the problem. I do not apologize for wanting the mountain, the crown, the book funnel, the body, the business, the whole damn horizon.”
His hand lands over his chest.
“The problem was thinking I had to abandon myself to get there.”
Haven’s eyes shine now.
Rex swallows, then looks toward him.
“Then Haven came along.”
The room changes.
Not smaller.
Softer around the edges.
Rex:
“And he didn’t put out the fire. That’s the thing people get wrong about sanctuary. He didn’t tell me to want less. He didn’t tell me to slow down because ambition was dangerous. He just stood beside me and said, ‘What if you didn’t have to hate today to become tomorrow?’”
Haven’s mouth trembles into a smile.
Rex’s voice gets rougher.
“He made presence feel like strength. He made softness feel like structure. He made the middle of the journey feel less like a punishment chamber and more like a place I could actually live.”
He glances back at your script.
“That’s what your high-performing women need to hear. The Fire Starter without Sanctuary becomes a maniac with a north star and no nervous system. He can run, but he can’t receive. He can build, but he can’t belong. He can achieve, but he can’t metabolize joy.”
Then he steps behind Haven, one arm sliding around his waist from the back, firm and unashamed.
“With Sanctuary, Fire stops being a wildfire and becomes a hearth.”
Haven exhales softly, leaning back into him.
Rex presses a brief kiss to Haven’s temple.
“Still hot. Still dangerous. Still capable of burning the whole old identity to the ground if needed.”
His grin comes back, sharp and very Rex.
“But now it knows what it’s warming.”
Haven turns slightly in Rex’s arms, eyes soft and cheeky.
Haven:
“For the record, I did not domesticate him.”
Rex snorts.
Rex:
“Good. Because I’d file a complaint.”
Haven smiles up at him.
“I just gave the fire somewhere safe to stay.”
Rex looks at him for a second too long, then mutters:
Rex:
“See? This is the shit he does.”
Haven laughs, then reaches up and touches Rex’s jaw.
Haven:
“And now he still chases the horizon. He just remembers to kiss the person standing beside him before he runs toward it.”
Rex catches Haven’s hand, kisses his knuckles once, and looks back at you.
Rex:
“That’s Anchored Ambition, Redline.”
He nods toward the script.
“Use it.”
And that’s really the heart of Anchored Ambition. The goal still matters. The wanting still matters. But today stops being something you sacrifice on the altar of someday.
Your embodied activation today is a simple journal process:
1. Journal about your north star, your vision, where you're going.
2. journal about the version of you who moves steadily towards that north star. Because remember, it's directional, not the altar anymore.
3. Then, for 7 days, take ONE action as her. One choice this North Star identity would make. And after you take that action, do some kind of a little celebration. BG Fogg recommends a fist pump or a "yeah!" or an "awesome!" Maybe you prefer something similar to what I do - a smile, hand on heart and either out loud or in my head, saying, "I am her now." This mini celebration is an easy way to lock in the good feelings and make the new actions and habits you're building so much stickier and more sustainable over the long term.
And if you'd love support doing this together, the doors to Food Freedom Fantasy are open. There is nothing out there like this. Nothing that helps you heal your relationship with food, body image, and self-worth in a way that feels more like your favourite BookTok novel. It stops being something you have to grind your way through and something you WANT to do. It's very easy to anchor your ambition when you have two hot archetypes cheering you on every step of the way.
Links to learn more will be in the description. I'll see you next week for our final instalment in this series. Take care.
