It's Better To Be Late Than To Never Show Up

Life happens, and there WILL be moments when you’re late; here’s what to do.

Eric Aaberg
April 07, 2025

Even with expert time management skills where every detail of my life exists in my Google Calendar, I’m still sometimes late to things.

Even with ambitious goals and keeping myself consistent, there are weeks where I get behind or more busy and don’t post, stick with my personal content creation, or get my weekly newsletter out (prime example, last week).

But… rather than worrying about the impact of being late, you should be worried about the impact of never showing up.

Some people think it’s too late to start their own business, be a creator, change their career, or whatever it is (we love to assume that the market is “too saturated” with that content or that business idea “has already been done before”). However, the truth is - starting now is better than never. Heck, you can even start next month as long as you keep yourself accountable, proactively plan so you have a consistent start, and remove excuses for never getting to it.

When you remove the pressure of anything you do needs to be perfect, it becomes easier to just try and start (even if you told yourself you were going to start sooner).

If you’re late for a work meeting, what do you do? You either proactively let your team know or apologize after (don’t overthink it; life and LA traffic happens).

The same thing should be applied to yourself and your own projects, small business, etc. If you are late to accomplishing a step towards your goal or your side hustle, hold yourself accountable, apologize out loud (I know this sounds ridiculous, but trust), and tell yourself how you’re going to make up for it the next time.

But also recognize it’s human to be late occasionally (maybe just don’t do it every time). Don’t beat yourself up for it, but rather tell yourself how you’re still going to show up.

Real-life example: I visited Texas this past week to catch up with family, while still doing my job remotely… I simply didn’t have the time during the chaos to publish an article for my newsletter.

How I’m making up for it: I wrote this and 6 other articles on the airplane back to Los Angeles, planning to schedule these in advance so I can be more consistent, and gave myself grace as it’s not the end of the world.

So, sometime this week, I challenge you to sit down and write out on paper or in a Google Doc how you’re going to show up, and how you plan to be consistent with it.

So… what are you working towards or what is something you’ve been late to before? Reply back to me, and I’d be happy to chat more about it if you have questions.

Cheers,
Eric Aaberg

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