Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #249| What's Causing Your Chronic Lateness (And How To Fix It)
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Running late is one of those things that will always cause a little stress and a little overwhelm and impact our mindset.
- 0:10Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:28Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hello, friend.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about running late.
- 0:43Michelle Gauthier: When I was working on my goals for 2026, I had this category of microhabits, little things that I wanted to tweak or change about my behavior that I thought would make my year better.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: And I chose four of them and I put one in each quarter for the year.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: So in the first quarter, I really wanted to focus on not being late.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: I usually arrive to where I want to be a minute or two after I would really prefer to be there.
- 1:08Michelle Gauthier: And so I had just let this become a habit and it was causing me to arrive at places feeling not present and kind of overwhelmed and flustered.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: And so I thought, I'm gonna look into this.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: I learned a lot when I was working on this little micro habit.
- 1:22Michelle Gauthier: And I realized too that the same thing was happening for a lot of my clients where they were just consistently running late, whether that be 30 seconds late, a minute late, 10 minutes late.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: I really think that running late is one of those things that will always cause a little stress and a little overwhelm.
- 1:39Michelle Gauthier: I don't think there's anybody who can be late to something that they wanted to be on time for and just be like, oh well, it's no big deal.
- 1:47Michelle Gauthier: I'm not talking about a party where you run, you know, fashionably late.
- 1:50Michelle Gauthier: I'm talking about an appointment or in my case, a class at the gym, where you're a few minutes late.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: I just think it always impacts our mindset.
- 1:57Michelle Gauthier: And I think little things like this can add up over time.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: Today you'll discover the real reasons why women like us run late, what running late actually does to your brain and your focus, not just in that moment, but for the rest of the day.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: And then three practical shifts you can make to try to break the pattern for good.
- 2:14Michelle Gauthier: And I will share with you how I have done at breaking this pattern.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: Let's first start off by talking about some of the reasons why you might be running late.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: And I think some of these may surprise you too.
- 2:25Michelle Gauthier: Here are the thinking patterns that I see most often, both in myself and in clients.
- 2:30Michelle Gauthier: The first thinking pattern is called optimism bias.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: I think this is one of the few times in life when thinking optimistically could cause an issue.
- 2:38Michelle Gauthier: My handsome man friend lives about, see, I even want to say 30 minutes right now.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: I think he realistically lives 40 minutes away from me and he lives in a high rise and there is street parking.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: So in my brain, naturally I calculate that as, okay, it's like, you know, 26, 27 miles away.
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: It'll take me 30 minutes to get there.
- 2:55Michelle Gauthier: So I'm leaving my house at 8:30, I'll be to your house at nine.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: When realistically there's always traffic in this one certain area, it's for sure gonna take me like 40 minutes.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: Then I have to find street parking, then I go in the building, then I wait for the elevator, then I go up the elevator to the 20th floor, then I walk down to where he actually lives.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: I mean, it's definitely a good 45 minutes at minimum, but my brain thinks that it takes 30 minutes.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: And there probably is a world where I could do all that in 30 minutes if I went there at like 5 a.m.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: on a Sunday morning and there was no traffic and I could park right in front of his building.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: This is a great place to use a realistic expectation or what we sometimes call strategic pessimism.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: We don't want to think like, what if there's a huge problem on the highway and it's completely closed down for an hour because that's really unrealistic.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: But in this example I'm talking about, there's always like a 10-minute slowdown in the middle of the drive.
- 3:44Michelle Gauthier: So really try to have the expectation based on reality and give yourself that extra time, that extra 15 minutes in this example that I'm talking about to get there.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: The other pattern that I see is more along the people-pleasing end of things.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: A lot of lateness isn't actually about the transition to the next thing, it's about the inability to end the current thing.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: If you're thinking about people who you work with, there are people who just chronically go over their meeting time, or maybe a friend will call you and you really don't have time to talk to them, but you pick up the call and you take it anyway, or somebody else is saying, Oh, I just need your help real quick, or can you help me real quick with this?
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: So instead of staying focused on what you're doing and what you need to do next, you stay on that person's schedule because you don't want to upset them.
- 4:29Michelle Gauthier: And then you make yourself late essentially from people pleasing.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: The third pattern that I see is not valuing or paying attention to your own transition time.
- 4:38Michelle Gauthier: So when you schedule your day, do you build in time to get from one thing to the next thing?
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: If you think about the way that the world works today, if you're working in a corporate type job, especially, you could have back-to-back meetings.
- 4:51Michelle Gauthier: I mean, I used to look at my calendar and think, oh wow, I have eight to nine, nine to ten, ten to eleven.
- 4:56Michelle Gauthier: There's no time in there to go to the bathroom, pull up your notes for the call you're about to have, get a drink of water, god forbid eat lunch or anything like that.
- 5:05Michelle Gauthier: And I feel like we get in this habit of trying to pack in as much as we can with zero buffer.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: And that is because having a buffer feels like indulgent or something, like it's lazy or inefficient.
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: But that transition time is real time.
- 5:19Michelle Gauthier: And if you imagine if you had five minutes at the end of one meeting before you started the next, and you could really get up, get some water, refocus, what a difference that would make when you got to that second meeting.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: This is why my coaching sessions they start on the hour, but they're 50 minutes long.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: So both of us on the call have 10 minutes before we transition over to our next thing.
- 5:42Michelle Gauthier: It makes a huge difference.
- 5:44Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's talk about what running late actually does to your brain.
- 5:48Michelle Gauthier: For me, one of the places that I actually run late is when I go to the gym.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: If I'm going to a class at the gym at 8:30, my most likely time to arrive is 8:30 or 8:31.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: And what happens when I'm on my way there and I can see that I'm gonna get there at 8:30 or 8.31, my nervous system is activated.
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: It's not in a calm focused state.
- 6:09Michelle Gauthier: It's like, oh shoot, okay, well, if I don't hit this red light, maybe I'll get there on time.
- 6:13Michelle Gauthier: Okay, well, the light's red.
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: Let me check in for class on the app so I don't have to do that when I get there.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: And then I park my car and hurry up and get in there and put my stuff down and get on the floor.
- 6:22Michelle Gauthier: And by the time I get there, I'm not really present.
- 6:24Michelle Gauthier: I'm physically present, but mentally I'm still feeling flustered.
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: Think of it like a computer with a whole bunch of tabs open.
- 6:31Michelle Gauthier: You can technically use the computer, but it's slow and it's glitchy and it's not running the way it's supposed to, versus the other option of getting there at 827, 828, and actually being on the floor and ready to work out.
- 6:44Michelle Gauthier: When it starts, I just feel completely calm and ready to do what I'm gonna do.
- 6:49Michelle Gauthier: So why does this matter?
- 6:51Michelle Gauthier: So what if you feel flustered the first five minutes of a workout?
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: It all works out, right?
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: And I do think that's true.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: It's not like this is the end of the world, but I think any place where we can adjust these micro habits, you are creating, first of all, a new habit for yourself and a more calm state of being instead of being up and down.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I'm running late, I'm stressed, okay.
- 7:13Michelle Gauthier: I made it.
- 7:13Michelle Gauthier: All right, let me get focused.
- 7:14Michelle Gauthier: I'm focused, I'm in the moment.
- 7:15Michelle Gauthier: Now I got the next thing.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm running late, I'm stressed, I'm in going up and down.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: I'm doing a little up and down motion with my hand right now that you can't see.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: But it's just that up and down, let's say you do that six or eight times in a day, it's just unnecessary anxiety and overwhelm and loss of focus.
- 7:32Michelle Gauthier: So here are a couple of shifts that I suggest if you want to stop this habit.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: Shift number one is to get curious about why you're late in the first place.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: What actually are you doing?
- 7:45Michelle Gauthier: If I look at the reason why I'm late to an 8:30 class, I've been up for hours.
- 7:50Michelle Gauthier: It's not like, oh, I'm just rolling out of bed and getting there.
- 7:53Michelle Gauthier: It's because I was trying to do the maximum number of things before I left so that they were already done.
- 7:59Michelle Gauthier: Let me just put these dishes in the dishwasher.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: Let me just send this one last email.
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: Oh, let me read up on this person that I'm interviewing for the podcast.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: And it felt like I had to maximize every single minute of every day.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: And by doing so, it was just making me consistently late.
- 8:15Michelle Gauthier: So between noticing that and noticing that, my brain always underestimates how much time things actually take.
- 8:21Michelle Gauthier: It was super helpful to me to understand what I was doing and why I was doing it.
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: I promise, I know this sounds super simple, but if you just stop and ask yourself, like, what am I doing?
- 8:31Michelle Gauthier: Why am I being late?
- 8:32Michelle Gauthier: It could be really enlightening for you.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: If you are more stuck on calls or situations where other people are causing you to be late, like the people-pleasing end of things, one of the things you can do is just let people know at the beginning of a meeting or at the beginning of a lunch or a phone call, I have a hard stop at 145.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: So let's make sure we cover the most important things first.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: Setting expectation for other people will make it easier for you to say, okay, I've got to go in five minutes.
- 9:03Michelle Gauthier: Is there anything else we should talk about?
- 9:05Michelle Gauthier: Even though it will feel uncomfortable, like I always talk about with people pleasing, when you learn that skill, it will feel uncomfortable.
- 9:11Michelle Gauthier: The last suggestion I have is to really focus on how you're using the transition time between meetings.
- 9:17Michelle Gauthier: And if your answer is, I have no transition times between meetings, that is a great place to start.
- 9:23Michelle Gauthier: Let's say you have a nine o'clock meeting.
- 9:26Michelle Gauthier: Are you sliding into your chair at 8:59 or nine o'clock and quickly trying to get on that call or grab your stuff and go to a meeting?
- 9:34Michelle Gauthier: Could you get there five minutes earlier and sit down at your desk and look at your schedule for the day?
- 9:39Michelle Gauthier: Just think about the way that you are transitioning between home and work and the meetings when you are at work and put some intention into that transition.
- 9:48Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's pull this all together.
- 9:50Michelle Gauthier: Running late is often a thinking problem, driven by optimism bias, meaning I think I can get there more quickly than I actually can.
- 9:58Michelle Gauthier: People pleasing.
- 9:59Michelle Gauthier: So I don't want to leave somebody else when they need me and not valuing or paying attention to your own transition time.
- 10:05Michelle Gauthier: And the cost of that is, of course, being late, but it's the mental loop that follows you all day.
- 10:11Michelle Gauthier: Frazzled arrival and that feeling of the 47 tabs running in the background while you're trying to focus on something.
- 10:17Michelle Gauthier: And what I recommend that you do for that is get curious about why you are late and help yourself understand your patterns, practice ending things on time, and then really think about and be mindful about your transition time.
- 10:30Michelle Gauthier: Where do you have the opportunity to better your transition time between the back-to-backness of life?
- 10:36Michelle Gauthier: And now I will tell you that the grade that I would give myself for the new micro habit of not running late and not getting someplace a minute after it starts, I would give myself a C.
- 10:50Michelle Gauthier: So I know now what is causing it.
- 10:54Michelle Gauthier: I have the ability to be on time now, and I'm still in the transition phase where it is hard for me to do that all the time.
- 11:03Michelle Gauthier: So the way that I'm handling that is I'm not being super critical of myself.
- 11:07Michelle Gauthier: I'm just trying to continue to improve.
- 11:09Michelle Gauthier: So I had this as a Q1 goal.
- 11:11Michelle Gauthier: As you know, we're now solidly into Q2, and I'm still working on this.
- 11:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm sharing that with you to say now I have some evidence to know how good it feels when I am not running late.
- 11:21Michelle Gauthier: And also when you have an old pattern, sometimes it can be hard to break, and you just have to keep working on it.
- 11:27Michelle Gauthier: Okay, if I don't get this podcast to my podcast producer soon, I'm going to be late with my podcast delivery.
- 11:34Michelle Gauthier: So that is all for today.
- 11:36Michelle Gauthier: I hope you have a great week.
- 11:38Michelle Gauthier: As always, if this episode was helpful, I'd love if you shared it with a friend or leave a rating and review.
- 11:44Michelle Gauthier: It means the world to me and it helps other women find the show.
- 11:47Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 11:54Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 12:00Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.