Listener Question: On Being Late

Apr 1, 2024

Special education teacher Aggie seeks advice on staying calm and composed when already late. Strategies for managing lateness with ADHD, self-compassion, stress management, and time organization are discussed in the episode.

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ADVICE

Practice Acceptance of Lateness

Accept that being late is sometimes inevitable, especially with ADHD, and give yourself grace when it happens.
Shift your self-talk from criticism to understanding to reduce panic and frustration.

ADVICE

Reframe Late Apologies

Reframe "I'm sorry I'm late" to "Thank you for your patience" to show gratitude and create a positive atmosphere.
Genuine appreciation can ease tension and improve interactions when you're late.

ADVICE

Calm Stress With Deep Breathing

Use deep breathing to calm your nervous system when late and stressed, helping restore rational thinking.
Practice slow, controlled breaths regularly to better manage panic in the moment.

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Hey team!

We’ve got another listener question today, this time from my friend Aggie:

Hi, Will, Aggie here. Longtime listener, first time caller. To give listeners context, you and I did admin work together and accountability coaching groups. Then we actually got to meet in person at the Chad conference before COVID hit. I myself have a background as a special education teacher, uh, specializing in severe disabilities and autism specific programs. So behavior is one of my strong skills. Implementing understanding. and executing behavior interventions. My question is this, planning and scheduling and time tracking are all great preventative strategies.Do you have any insight or resources around when you know you're already late, probably rushing, and you're trying to stay calm and collected and still show up the way you want to, Even when you were already late. So I'm trying not to show up flustered and discombobulated. I'm thinking maybe some people have coping strategies or other people can share what they do to, to do what I described and give me a jumping off point on how to reframe that emotional state.In the moment of slight or major panic. Would love to hear your ideas or other listeners ideas in response. And thank you so much for your podcast. You're seriously crushing it.

Thanks for the question; Aggie and I think this is an issue we can all relate to. Being late sucks. So, in this episode, we tackle the struggle of showing up calm and composed when maybe we don’t feel calm and collected. We’ll be looking at a number of tools that we can use to try and get ourselves in the right head space, as well as jumping into what we can do so that we might not be late quite as often. Sign up for my Newsletter Any And All Distractions Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/177 This Episode's Top Tips

Practice acceptance of your ADHD and that sometimes lateness will happen. Work on changing the narrative from self-criticism to understanding and try to give yourself some compassion when you’re running late.
Try reframing "I'm sorry I'm late" to "Thank you for your patience" to create a more positive atmosphere and show your gratitude when someone waits for you.
Deep breathing can be especially helpful in calming your nervous system - when we’re running late and stressed, our prefrontal cortex is impaired, and that makes rational decision-making harder. By slowing down and activating our parasympathetic nervous system through deep breathing, we can calm ourselves and get into the right headspace.