Why You Always Leave Things to the Last Minute (Even When You Swear You Won’t This Time) [ep. #240]
Hello lovely lady and welcome to The Subconscious Expert!
Why do you always leave things to the last minute, even when you swear you wouldn’t this time? I’m not here to give you productivity hacks or tell you to set the bloody deadline earlier. I’m going to show you what’s really happening in your brain.
You’re not lazy or have poor time management skills – it’s your nervous system survival strategy! You’ve trained your brain to only take action when adrenaline spikes, creating a five-phase loop: pressure, avoidance, panic, hyper-focus, and relief. Your brain is protecting you from potential judgement, failure, or even success by delaying until the fear of missing the deadline outweighs your deeper fears.
I’ve been there – I was literally called the "last minute Haydon"! But I broke free, and so can you! So today I’m going to walk you through three specific steps to interrupt this pattern: catching your protective story early, making safety your starting point, and breaking the urgency loop with micro actions. Ready? Let me show you how!
Topics covered on Always Leave Things to the Last Minute:
Why do so many high-achieving women always leave things until the last minute?
How does the behavioural loop of leaving things until the last minute keep reinforcing your procrastination habits?
What’s really happening in your brain when you avoid important tasks until the deadline looms?
What specific steps can you take to retrain your brain to start tasks before the deadline?
How can you build a new identity beyond the “last minute” persona?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quote:
"You have trained your brain to only take action when adrenaline spikes." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind blowing results you desire in your life and business. I've said it before and I will say it a hundred times again, your business cannot outgrow your mindset, and if you wanna grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious.
So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve. Hello, my gorgeous lady. Welcome back to the Subconscious Expert. Today we're diving in to why you always leave things to the last minute, even when you swear you wouldn't this time. You know the drill. I know you know the drill. The deadline's looming.
It's there in your calendar. You've looked at it a hundred times, and the thing you [00:01:00] promised you'd do last week is still sitting with cobwebs on it, completely untouched, and it's been on your mind for days. Yes, it has. It's been staring at you in the face probably weeks. Actually, I might even hazard a guess at months.
And suddenly it's the night before it's due and you're scrambling. In fact, it might not even be the night before it's due. It might be the day it's due, and you are scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, scrambling like eggs in a pan to pull it together. Welcome. Welcome to the episode where we're diving into one of the most frustrating patterns, high achieving woman experience, and.
By God. I see it so very often. In fact, I was named last minute Haydon and so are all my family. So it's been a pattern that I have massively worked through [00:02:00] myself. So today I am not here. I'll take my narration voice off, but I'm not here today to give you productivity hacks. I'm not even here to tell you to set the fucking deadline earlier.
I'm not, I'm actually here to give you the actual reasons this keeps happening, and it's not the things that you think. It's not because you're busy, really, really busy. It's not because you're lazy. We know that you're not. It's not because you have bad discipline or bad time management. It's deeper than that, as it always is when you do the subconscious work.
It's subconscious, it's behavioral, and actually once you start to see it, you are going to be able to shift it. So the pattern, the pattern that I see, let's make it make sense to you. I wanna zoom in what it actually looks like. So step number one, you've got something important coming up. Now in business, it's [00:03:00] usually a launch, a masterclass, slides that you've got to do a piece of content, a video.
A, a checking a client's piece of work and you know, it's important and actually you wanna do it really, really well. Nothing that you put out is ever half-assed, you know, bad, et cetera. You, you don't play in those realms. You wanna do it really well. So you wait and you wait. And you wait and you wait and you wait and you get so much dopamine in the weight actually.
And then 24 hours, 10 hours, four hours, one hour before it's due. That rush of adrenaline kicks in. And you finally get it done. You finally get it done, yes, in a frenzy, but you bloody do it and somehow you fucking pull it off, don't you? You pull it off. The client's happy. The post has gone out and it's amazing.
The launch goes okay. However, [00:04:00] you are exhausted. Like you are exhausted to the point that you turn around and you're like, I have never felt this exhausted, this stressed, this overwhelmed in my life. And I swear, I swear to Lucifer, I will never do that again. Only you do. The next launch, the next client, check the next piece of content.
Here we are again. So what fricking gifts, let's break it down. I'm on my high horse already today, everyone. So let's break down the behavior to start off with, and I wanna actually look at the behavioral loop. This is what I would do in session together, is really looking at the phases that you go through in this behavioral loop.
So phase number one. It is pressure. The task arrives, the pressure begins. So we're building this pressure, we're building this pressure, we're building this pressure. [00:05:00] Pressure then takes you into phase two avoidance, good old avoidance, and that's where a lot, a lot of clients that come to work with me sit in.
They do, they do in the avoidance and you tell yourself, okay, I'll start it tomorrow. Um, yeah, we'll definitely do that tomorrow. In fact, let me just sit at my desk, let me maybe plan it out. Um, then I'm gonna start to scroll. Then I'm gonna suddenly decide that I've gotta update my branding. Then I've gotta delete some photos from my photo album or, um, a client's just messaged in WhatsApp.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Avoidance. Phase three, panic. The deadline's here and now your nervous system is that activated. You are in that fight or flight that you're like, well, we've gotta do it. We've got no other option. Panic phase four, hyper focus, adrenaline's pumping, and you [00:06:00] finally produce a thing, you do it.
You're like, okay, I've gotta lock in. It's now or never. I have no. Physical option anymore. Phase five relief, but reinforcement. I've got it done. I've got it done. I feel really proud. You reward yourself. You walk out your office and you're like, see, I can do it. I can do it under that pressure. I can smash it under that pressure.
And guess what? The pattern is reinforced. So in your mind, this last minute approach, it works for you. It works for you. And actually what happens is it gets reinforced in identity. This is my creative style, this is how I work best. I operate better under pressure. I do things better under pressure. And actually, if we really, really look at it, if we really get very, very honest, one, [00:07:00] it's not sustainable.
In fact, it is the most unsustainable way of working. Two, it's not expansive. And actually, yes, your work is good, but you know, if you had more time to do it, how much better or more amazing it could be. And three, I. It's not actually enjoyable. Don't bullshit me. I know it's not. I've been there. It's not enjoyable.
So why is it feeling safer to keep playing this loop every single time? And this is where the subconscious and the neuroscience comes in. But I actually want to today look at it from a very logical, tangible perspective, because actually we are working with something that's very logical and very tangible, and that is doing a task.
So at its core, at your subconscious core, at our brain's core, it's wired for two things. And if you've listened to this podcast enough, you will probably know them good, because I like [00:08:00] to repeat things, so you take it in, but. At its core, we are wired for one, safety and two efficiency. Safety and efficiency.
That is what your brain is looking for in every moment of every day in everything you do. So when a task that we're working on in the business, when that task tri triggers like literally puts out a trigger to your subconscious that there is a potential judgment or. Maybe a failure or maybe exposure or maybe even success.
A lot of my clients are actually fearing the success and they are more the failure, whether that's a post, whether that's a launch, whether that's a sales page, whether that's hitting your next level. Your subconscious literally files that as threatening, life threatening, to be honest. That's how it behaves.
So what does it do? It delays. It delays the threat. It [00:09:00] protects you through the avoidance, literally through the avoidance, and it waits until, listen to this. It waits until the fear of the deadline outweighs the fear of the threat. So the fear of the deadline, I've said I'm gonna do this and I have to do it on this day.
Or I've told my audience, or I've told my client, or I've told myself that this is the deadline. This is why everyone goes, I work so much better with deadlines. Um, you know, it waits for that moment. And then the fear of the deadline of you actually completing it then outweighs the fear. The fear of being judged, the fear of success, the fear of exposure, the fear of failure, the fear of being seen.
So actually, when we look at it, a lot of the time, your brain goes, well, I'm just procrastinating. You know, it, it's just procrastination, or it's just, uh, it, it's just the way I work. I just do [00:10:00] it better that way. It's not. It's a nervous system survival strategy. And you, by doing this, and this is okay, 'cause I'm going to untrain you.
You have trained your brain to only take action when adrenaline spikes. And to be honest, when you are in adrenaline, we've all been there. Adrenaline feels like momentum. It does. It feels like, oh my God, this is exciting and we're doing something, and here we are and let's go, and boom, boom, boom. But actually adrenaline is just a stress hormone.
And it, and it's a stress hormone kicking you into fight or flight mode to survive the deadline. So actually when we look at it, when you are in quote unquote, the best way I create, you are not creating from calm, confident, capable creative, to be honest, because you're in fight or flight, which means that you're not in the prefrontal cortex, which is where our creativity and that self CEO energy lives you are [00:11:00] creating from cortisol.
And that is why it feels rushed. That is why it feels chaotic, and that's why you cannot seem to shift into ease no matter how successful you get, no matter how successful you get, you still keep doing that. I can't have ease, bloody hell, no, I can't. So that's why we constantly keep going back into that same pattern.
Keep going into that same pattern, and you then the more you do that pattern, the more stronger it gets, the more we go to it. Because your brain wants efficiency and it's like, oh, okay. We've done this a couple of times before and that's the most efficient way that we do things is last minute because we've never taught it any different way.
That is the subconscious protective pattern that keeps you in the last minute mode, the last minute mode, and. A lot [00:12:00] of the time, the protection pattern, well, if I, you know, if I only give 70%, if I only give it 70% and it flops, I can just blame the lack of time that I had. Well, I just didn't have much time to do this.
Didn't have much time here. I didn't, no, no. I had to do it all last minute. And that's why. That is why. And however you can sit there and go, okay, I could give it my all. I could absolutely give it my all, and I could plan this out and I could do all of this, and it still doesn't land. That then is very vulnerable.
That's really exposing. Well, what your brain ex perceives to be exposing, and that's the core wound that a lot of your parts will stop you from feeling that shame, that vulnerability. So of course your brain is trying to avoid that. Very, very clever. It's gonna delay, it's gonna distract, it's gonna deflect again.
Literally [00:13:00] not because you're unproductive, because it's protecting you, it's protecting your self-worth. It's protecting. All of the belief systems that you're currently leading from this last minute from, so you know now what's happening. You can call yourself out, you can laugh at yourself. I certainly did because it was getting ridiculous at one point.
That's why we're called last minute Haydon, because my whole family does it. It's a mirror that I learnt. It's a behavior that I learned and that I had to unlearn. Not only when I had a business, but equally when I had a baby. So now we understand the pattern, what the hell are we gonna do with it? And this is what I would suggest with clients.
This is what I would do with clients, and this is something you can go away and do yourself. So I suggest you get pen and paper notebook, whatever's gonna help you to actually kind of sit down and do these steps. Number one, we want to catch the protective story early. Whatever that story is, and you might [00:14:00] actually not be aware of that right now.
We might have to find it in the moment, but now I've given you the awareness. Now you can start to question it in the moment. So when you, when you start to notice yourself avoiding the tasks. Pushing it back to the next day, pushing it back to the day after. Oh, I could probably get that done after the gym, you know, after I've done that full workout, a full day.
And yeah, I'll sit down at 7:00 PM and do that. Knowing full well that you won't, I want you to ask yourself, what am I afraid this task will mean about me if it doesn't land? If it doesn't land, or if it doesn't work, or if it fails, or if it succeeds, there's gonna be differences to that question.
Depending on what you are currently, what your parts are bringing up, what your subconscious is bringing up, change it as you will, but what am I afraid this task will mean about me? If it doesn't insert or it does [00:15:00] insert whatever you're currently going through, we want to bring the pattern. And what we're doing here is bringing the pattern to your conscious awareness, because at the moment you just think, you know, going to the gym is, is, is a way better choice than sitting and doing your masterclass, um, slides.
Now it might be, have you questioned it? Have you questioned that? It is. So we are just bringing the pattern to that conscious awareness That is the very first interruption, and the more we interrupt these patterns, the weaker they become and the stronger we can create the other patterns. Secondly, we want to, at any given moment, with any subconscious work that you are doing, make safety the start point.
So before you act, before you change anything, before we do anything, we want to regulate yourself back into safety, whatever that looks like for you, whether it's visualizing the task going really well, you know, a lot of the time I say to my [00:16:00] clients, visualize yourself 15 minutes. After you've successfully achieved the task that you are avoiding, show your subconscious that it's safe.
Let your nervous system feel that it's safe to succeed. Feel it in your body. This is why I say add the safety to your visualizations of your next level self, of your higher self. We want to feel how safe it is. We want to train your subconscious how safe it is, because if we don't do that, your brain will.
Only associate that task with stress. With fear, with rejection, with all the things that it's bringing up. So before you act, before you do anything, regulate back into safety. If you want tools and techniques to help you with that, I would definitely suggest jumping into the subconscious membership, bringing that safety in.
There's a lot of tools in there that would help. And then number three. The last thing we want to do is we want to break this kind of [00:17:00] urgency story, this urgency loop. So start the task. You have to literally train your brain to start the task before the adrenaline kicks in. We are, we are in the moment retraining your brain, that progress, doing things, working on things doesn't require you to be in panic.
Doesn't require you to be in. I've gotta get this done. Oh my God, I've left this till last minute again. Like we are literally retraining the brain to a new way of working. So start the task, even if it's for five minutes, 10 minutes, like just give yourself a chance. Be in. We are already in the safety. I'm learning that it's safe for me to do this two weeks before it's due.
That might make you feel physically sick, me saying that, but we have to start somewhere, and this is where I find those micro actions matter. [00:18:00] I am all about the micro actions inside my world. It's not about doing it all at once. It's about compounding the compounding effect of the micro actions and actually building the evidence more than anything that you can act, that you can create, that you can do, that you can build without pressure.
So really starting to break that loop. How do you want it to look? How do you want to do things? How do you want it to feel as you are doing things? Really get to understand and know that identity because at the moment we're stuck in this identity of like, well, I'm just last minute Haydon. That's what I do, and I had to create and understand.
Who I was without that, who am I without last minute Haydon, like who am I without that? So actually I had to start to look at my identity and go, okay, she sits down and does this and this is how it feels and this is what then impacts her and this is what she can then do. The [00:19:00] night before she would be doing the masterclass slides, but actually can, she can just sit and have a glass of wine because she knows it's already done.
Ah, how fantastic. Really training your brain of what that identity looks like. So there's your steps. I want you to take them. I want you to understand, first of all, like I said, what is that protective story? I. What bad things are gonna happen if you actually did the task two weeks out, one week out, three days out, that might be where you start.
That two weeks out might make you feel too sick, like it's too far, too far away. Um, but really understand like, what am I afraid this task will mean about me if it doesn't do this, or if it does do this, or what bad things would happen if I actually did this task Now. Secondly, make safety the starting point.
So before we do anything, get into safety in the body. Visualize the task going really well. It's 50 minutes after you've finished it. Oh my God. Look how proud I am. I've done it Two weeks out. I'm a [00:20:00] new woman, baby, walk out your office. Flick in your guard damn hair. And then number three. Break the urgency loop.
So we need to retrain your subconscious, what it looks like instead, if I'm not doing the way that I used to do, we have to replace it with something else. What is that something else? How do I want to do that moving forwards? It's not about being a procrastinator. This is down to the identity that you have created by doing this pattern over and over and over and over again.
And because you've done it over again and over again and over again, it's created safety and that is how your subconscious protects you from this perceived pain. Even if we know that you doing that last minute is actually keeping you small. That is a, it is a literal protection pattern to keep you small because although it, it lands and although it you do it well, it's not as good as I know it would be if you had time, if you had space, if [00:21:00] you came from that creative, amazing energy rather than last minute.
So if you're tired of being the woman who leaves it all till last minute.
Let's shift it. It's time to shift it. You can still be powerful. You can still be impactful, you can still be creative. You can be all the things that your brain thinks that you only are when you are under pressure, without the chaos, without the pressure, and honestly moving into the next level of your business, wherever you are.
It is going to be way more enjoyable and it's actually going to be way more sustainable. So I hope this podcast episode has landed. Let me know if it does drop into my dms. I always love to hear that you're listening, and I will see you on the next episode. I love to see you plugging in and listening to the podcast every week.
So whilst you're here, I would love for you to spend a moment sharing your favorite episode, reviewing the [00:22:00] podcast, and of course, that Juicy five Star rating. These little acts of kindness really help the podcast reach more incredible powerhouses just like you. Now, if we're not connected on Instagram, add me at underscore Rebecca Haydon underscore.
And for the full show notes and more resources, head over to Rebecca Haydon dot com. I'll see you there.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!