Punctuality is a huge sign of respect and organization. If you are travelling to a dentist appointment, a lunch with friends or a class, the practice of being 5-10 minutes is a helpful especially if you are meeting in a classroom setting or a meeting with another person. The effects of always being late may have more implications than you may realize. Here are some of the impact that you have when you make being tardy a regular habit.

Your integrity becomes compromised.

When you do hold commitments people start to value your word less. When you agree to meet at a specific time, people count on you to be there. In a classroom setting, your classmates and teachers tend to wait for you out of compassion. However, if this is a regular occurrence, classmates might get the impression that you don’t feel that their time is valuable. During a meeting with co-workers, they might be as compassionate and move on without you. This will make you miss out on key points and usually the summary of the meeting. Don’t let time compromise your integrity. It is in your control. If you know that their is going to be traffic account for that. There is never an issue being 20-25 minutes early for an engagement.

Your mental state is not present.

Most people who are late actually do value people’s time and are not selfish. So, when they are late, they spend up to half an hour feeling shame for being late. This makes you not only late but not present. I can’t think of a worse scenario. You walk into a meeting where you are the second presenter and instead of worrying about a huge presentation that you have prepared weeks for, you are worrying about what your boss is going to say to you after the meeting. After all, 95% of the time being late is preventable and in your control. Getting that Uber an hour early and sitting at a local coffee shop giving you the mental preparedness to be ready to slay that presentation never hurt anyone.

Excuses are a form of deflection.

When we make excuses for being late, we don’t own our responsibility. On rare occasion, a tire will blow out and a family emergency will arise. However, this post is specifically targeting those that are chronically late to everything. These people blame race, drivers or their family. Excuses, as I said in my last post, are nothing but ways to discredit yourself. Could you have left a few minutes early or even an hour? Could you have planned better so that you didn’t have to go back home to grab stuff that you forgot? The answer is usually yes. Never deny yourself the opportunity to own your responsibility. People who own their responsibility are more likely to be more confident, tell the truth more and are more reliable than people who always try to blame circumstances instead of their own actions.

When you are late, I am NOT saying that you should feel horrible about yourself nor am I saying that things don’t sometimes come up that are out of your control. However, when this becomes a habit, your credibility, your state of mind and your irresponsibility shows to people that value you and want nothing but the best for you. People don’t really seek out to be late and lie but we make exceptions. If you have a hard time with this, try to follow that friend or co-worker that is always on time, or even early, and try to discover their magical powers.