Despite your best efforts, are you the type of person who struggles to be on time?
Seven Sharp asked Human Behaviour Specialist Hayden Brown why some people are late for everything and what they can do to change that.
Why are some people always late?
“I start with the idea of ‘always or never’ — it’s very black-and-white thinking and a label we often give to others. ‘Always late, never on time’, for example.
“It doesn’t honour us as the whole individual. The reality is we all live by an intrinsic set of priorities — what’s most important to least important in our life,” Brown explained.
“When we’re living by our highest priorities, we’re most reliable, disciplined, focused — because there’s more meaning and purpose to these priorities.
“We need to look at whether what we expect of ourselves aligns with what’s most important to us.”
Can people stop being late by just sorting their priorities?
“In getting clear on what’s most important to us, honouring that within ourselves, taking action on that, and communicating that to others, what we’d find is that we’re putting less unrealistic expectations on ourselves — because we’re living by our priorities — not other people’s priorities.
“Look at lateness as a symptom of what we expect of ourselves. The second part feeding into this is perhaps [lateness] is a symptom of a deeper pattern that plays out in our life,” he said.
“Many of us have a fear of rejection. We have pain points, past experiences, and traumas around missing out or being seen negatively, perhaps. All of these pain points influence our behaviours and patterns.”
How can people learn to be on time — for a job, for example?
“The great news is that you don’t have to love your job to be organised and reliable. Essentially, it’s about finding meaning in what we’re doing.
“As humans, we have this great ability, for better and worse, to create meaning and associations out of anything.”
Having a sense of purpose is paramount.
“If we can’t see meaning and purpose to what we’re doing, or we don’t love our job, it’s a case of creating the links in the brain and bringing forth the conscious awareness of how what we’re doing is benefitting what’s important to us.
“Connecting those dots creates the intrinsic buy-in,” Brown said.
“The first thing is identifying if you’d love to change — if you see the value. If you want to connect the dots of how being late is a drawback to what’s most important to you.
“If social and relationships are most important to you, it would be wise to look at whether you’re breaking rapport and trust. If personal growth is important to you, you might want to look at what opportunities you might miss out on by being late.”
