The Mind School

To the Woman Who Thought She’d Be "Further" by Now

• Breanna May

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You ever feel like you’re just... behind?

 Like everyone else got the manual, and you’re stuck re-reading chapter one?


Maybe it’s in your business.

 Your bank account.

 Your body.

 Your relationship status.

 Your career, your fertility, your family, your life.


That gnawing feeling of “I should be further along by now.”


I know it intimately.

 Which is why I recorded this new episode from the coziest corner of my house — hoodie on, Ugg boots zipped, tea in hand — and I let it rip.


Inside this episode of The Mind School Podcast, I dive deep into:


✨ Why “I’m not where I should be” is the most common lie we all buy into

 ✨ The arrival fallacy (aka why you never feel “done” even when you “get there”)

 ✨ How outdated social timelines are secretly running your decisions

 ✨ A fiery reframe that will give you your power (and peace) back

 ✨ Why falling behind might actually mean… you’re right on time


This is one of those pour-your-heart-out episodes.

 If you’ve ever cried on your birthday because you thought you’d be somewhere else by now, listen to this.

 If you’ve ever compared your path to your friends’ highlight reel and felt like a total failure, listen to this.

 If you’re tired of being told to trust the timing, but you kinda don’t, this one’s for you.


🎧 Listen to the new episode now:

 ➡️ “Why You’re Not Behind (Even If It Feels Like It)”

 Click here to tune in


You’re not late.

 You’re just alive.

 And the timeline?

 It was never real to begin with.


Big love,

B


P.S. Know someone spiralling about their timeline too? Forward this email or share the episode to your stories, let’s rewrite the rules together. 

As always, please don't forget to hit Subscribe! xxx

Breanna Hunter:

Okay, welcome back, fam. We are cozy today. If you're watching on YouTube, I have my cup of tea. I'm in my hoodie and my Ugg boots, and I'm very excited to hit record on this episode. This is an episode that I feel like I have a lot of experience with. So if you are somebody who, whether it's in your career, your finances, your relationships, your business, whatever context it is, if you ever have had that niggling feeling of I'm not where I thought I'd be yet, or I'm not where I wanted to be yet, or I'm falling behind, this episode is going to be for you. This, like I said, is something that I have so much experience in and it's something that I hear a lot, all the time. And interestingly enough, it's not something that I just hear from a certain demographic. I've heard this from so many age groups, it seems like it's something that is just part of the human experience, and it is the more research I did, which will blow your mind. I'm going to share some of the research that I've done. I did a little bit of research on this because I was like, What is it with this, like, weird timeline that we've all got? Where did it come from? Why are we all running towards this arbitrary timeline that makes us feel either progressed or behind? And how come even the people who have, quote, achieved it, still feel like they haven't? Still feel this sense of rushing. Still feel this sense of I'm not there yet. I should have it figured out. I've wasted time. It's running out. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. And it is. It feels like, like I said, it's across so many different contexts, whether you're you haven't figured out your profession yet. You haven't figured out your career yet. You thought you'd be more financially abundant by now. You thought your business would have taken off by now. You thought you would have had kids by now. You thought you would have had a partner by now. Like, I feel you, I see you, and I speak to so many people, like I said, in so many contexts. And what was really interesting is that as I was preparing for this podcast and thinking about this podcast, I was like, I have heard this from literally 16 year olds. When I was a high school teacher, it was very much the rhetoric of like, I need to have it figured out, like I don't know what I want to do at uni, so I feel like I'm behind and comparing themselves to the kids who seem to just know, seem to just have this clear path. I want to be an accountant, that's what I'm going to do. I want to be a lawyer, that's what I'm going to do. And there was kids who were like, oh my god, I haven't figured it out. There's something wrong with me. I'm running out of time. I'm not there yet. And I was like, fucking hell, you're 16. But also I could resonate. And I've definitely my experience for this really comes in my 20s. I feel like I spent my 20s racing towards this, like I said, arbitrary thing of I should have it figured out by the time I'm 30. Lol, I lol at myself now, but yeah, I remember my 29th birthday was when Everything burnt to the ground. I quit my job again, another career that I was like, nope, not this. I'm going to start a business. Because, again, it was like, I should have, I've done all these degrees, and I'm not any closer, and I haven't got the I haven't got the partner. I thought that I would have kids at a certain age, but if I reverse engineer it, we you know, like I remember being, I think, 25 and 26 and single, and being like, Oh my God, if I want to have kids by the time I'm 30, but I want to have been with the guy for already, like, three or four years and married before then, then, oh my god, I should be with him now, and I'm not with him now. So fuck. And I was like, freaking myself out with that. And now, of course, it's hilarious. I've been with my partner for eight years, and I always thought I would have kids by now, and here we are, and I don't, and it's been like, I like I said, it happens in your before your 20s. I definitely experienced it a lot in my 20s, but I also know clients who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s. And what I was thinking about was I know someone very, very dearly, who is in his 80s and is still thinking, I didn't figure it out. I need to do it before I die. He's in his 80s thinking I'm not there yet. I'm not leaving what I thought I should leave. I haven't built the legacy I wanted to leave, like all of these things, and I that's what this podcast episode is about, because it is something that so many of us think about, have experience with. Like I said, it applies to so many different contexts. And if I look back, which you know, hindsight is 2020 Hindsight is 2020 and it's easier to say now when I'm looking back, but if I look back on every time I thought I was taking a step back, every time I thought I was behind, I was actually right on the precipice of something fucking incredible, something new, something probably uncomfortable, because it does feel like this sense of lack or change or discomfort. But anytime in my life where I felt like, oh my gosh, I'm not there yet, it was a blessing in disguise. And something amazing was coming. But I wanted to, I was thinking about like, what is this invisible, arbitrary thing that we're all hustling towards? And there is. Is very much like a social timeline that has been normalized, glorified and celebrated in our western cultures. And those things sound like, you will have a job, you will leave school, you will have a job, you will work upwards in that job, only upwards because, God forbid you ever stay where you're happy? Oh, gosh, that's a whole nother conversation. I remember I got a promotion in my teaching job, and everyone, for a long time was like, Breanna, you're gonna go for it. You're gonna go for I was like, Fuck no, I like the classroom. Like, why would I go into more admin? Like, that's a laugh. We all know how much I hate a fucking spreadsheet. And so I was like, why would I do that? And anyway, I ended up taking the promotion as sure as shit. I was like, Ooh, gross. I did not like this part of it. So anyway, we are told, you keep promoting, you keep getting promoted. You keep going. And you know, then you get the mortgage, and then you have the 2.2 kids, and you have a dog, and you have a husband, and it should be by this age, and you have the Australian dream. Or if you're not even Australian listing, by the way, if you're listening and you're not in Australia, I know I've got listeners in Scotland, listeners in America. It's the same there. It's the Western hustle of going to the American Dream, the Australian dream, the dream of husband, kids, mortgage career that's progressing by a certain age. And what's so interesting is that this whole arbitrary timeline and narrative structure was created way back in the 60s, I believe, when there was just such a different context, such a different context. And I want to put this to you. We are now, currently as I'm recording this. It's 2025, right? I would not have guessed just two years ago how much the landscape has changed in two years, to the point where most of the jobs that people that are graduating high school now with didn't even exist. Did not even exist two or three years ago, the landscape has changed so much in this technological world, but with the Think about what AI has done. I was laughing to my girlfriend about this, and I was like, I fucking love past me so much more right now, because to think that I built my business like every journal I've ever created in my business, I fucking created, like typed away for days and days and days, everything that I've created, nurture sequences, funnels, email sequences, content posts, every single fucking Blood, Sweat tier of content and material within my business was written by me and my brain and my fingers typing, or more, more often than not, writing on a fucking document. I mean, like a piece of paper and pen. Old school here, so much better. By the way, so much better. But now I laugh, and I'm like to my I said to my girlfriend, can you believe? Like I just did a new email sequence recently for something else in my business, and chat GPT helped me. Obviously, I actually, this is a whole other conversation. I do the vibe of it. I do the energy of it. I get the tonality, I get everything correct. I get the messaging, the positioning. I use my own fucking brain for that. And then chat GPT helps me with little things like that, like I don't give a shit about admin things, chat GPT takes care of that for me. And I was saying to her, like, can you believe it? Like I actually used to write every single email, every reminder email, every nurture, la, la, la. So the land, what I'm saying is the landscape has changed so freaking much just with the rise of AI and oh my god. So in my household right now, my brother lives with me, and so my brother and my husband have these wild chats. They love talking and keeping up to date with AI. It has gotten wild, like they showed me what it is doing now with video content and oh my god, like if you think you're on top of your shit now, just we always need our finger on the pulse, because it's changing so rapidly. But what I'm saying is the landscape has changed so much that to think that we are still tied to an old paradigm of how things should be, as in, you need to have your kids by the time you're 30, or you need to be married by the time you're this that literally all comes from a societal conditioning where a life expectancy wasn't the same. B women didn't have as many choices. The economy hadn't inflated to the fucking wazoo. So two people actually did have to set themselves up financially and have highly you know, the landscapes changed back in the day when this blueprint, this arbitrary blueprint of where you need to be by a certain time, by a certain age, the parents who conditioned you, you listening to this now, the parents who conditioned you with this timeline love them to bits, but they are operating from a distant, different system and a different context and a different environment. Yet we picked up the environment, the conditioning. We pick up the conditioning through the movies, through societal coper. Programming through our own parents, programming, we've picked it up along the way, and the context now doesn't work. It's kind of like our parents gave us snakes. Do you guys remember Nokia, the phones, the phones, the old phones, the Nokia phones with the snakes games they gave us snakes. And we're fucking walking around with our fancy iPads and iPhones and gadgets going, this doesn't fucking work anymore. This, this program is outdated. We've got an old outdated programming, and we're still holding us to we're still holding ourselves to it. We're still holding ourselves to this old, outdated program that is, I must be this by this certain age to keep up with the Joneses, and let's remember that the Joneses, the metaphorical Joneses, back in the day, had one income. Maybe wife was at home raising three or four or five kids with a big property, and it wasn't as much of a it wasn't this landscape of, well, that's nice, but now usually two couples need to work. They're working harder, hours are longer. Inflation's gone through the roof. Women actually have way more opportunity and ambition, and actually, women are making a lot more money now. There's just so many changes, right? That's what I'm getting at the context, and the program that we're running is really, really outdated. But anyway, even though it's an outdated program, and it's arbitrary, and it's probably given to us by someone else with different values or a different environment, or a different financial context, or a different all these different things. I understand the feeling and the pressure and the shame and the sense of disappointment and even the grief of I'm not where I want to be. Trust me when I say I feel that like I'm with you, and I feel it did I think that I would have a child by now. Yes, I'm not where I thought

Unknown:

I would be, either. I get it, however, what I have

Breanna Hunter:

learned and what I think is going to really help, and something that I teach a lot about, is a few things that I'm going to give you now, which is some practical reframes, some mindset shifts that is going to help you if you are in this position. So the first thing that I want to touch on is it's actually, I call it the when I then I fallacy. When I am x, I will feel y when I have babies, then I'll be successful when I have the promotion, then I'll feel successful when I have the partner, the house, the six figures, the seven figures, whatever. The thing is that you feel you're behind in if you are starting the sentence with when I'm there, then I'll feel accomplished. This is a huge, big red flag. This is a massive red flag, because what it is doing is saying that your sense of self, your sense of worth, your sense of accomplishment, your sense of achievement, your sense of worthiness, is tied up in something external to you that you actually can't control. And I call it the when I then I red flag, however, when I did a little bit of research, it's actually called the arrival fallacy, and it was coined by a positive psychologist named tal Ben Shahar. And the arrival fallacy is exactly that. It's the fallacy that when I arrive, then I'll feel accomplished. When I arrive, then I'll feel whatever the thing is settled accomplished further ahead whatever the thing is that you think that that thing is going to offer you give you when I am let's use my example. When I am a mother, then I will feel complete. Maybe when I have the six figure business, then I'll feel like whatever the thing is for you. When I have the partner, then I will feel X, Y, Z, whatever the thing is. So the arrival fallacy is the fallacy that you will feel better, you will feel different, you will feel whole, you will feel fulfilled. You will feel satisfied when this external thing has landed in your lap. It's not true. It's not fucking true. It's not true. We don't we just don't. We're on to the next thing because it's the human way we're on to the next thing, especially if we have set up a program and set up a pattern where we're always waiting for something that hasn't arrived yet to give us that dopamine hit of over there is going to feel even better. And it's actually just a little bit of mental masturbation, is what it is. It's like, oh my god, I'm going to feel so good over there. And it creates, actually a sense of lack so we've got that issue when you are relying on something outside of you to give yourself a sense of peace, to give yourself a sense of completion. For example, I have spoken like, the example that I've given is when I'm a mother, I will feel more complete. And I was like, Oh, that's pretty deep. That's pretty deep, because I don't actually feel no actually, for the first time in a while, the last few months, I would say I do feel like something's missing. I do feel like something's missing, and it's the family, the kids, right? But what would that give me? It would give me something to fucking love and to nurture and to pour my love. Into and to teach, which is what I love. I can't wait to teach my child. I can't wait for me and Paul to have like a project, like I'm not a project, but like a project together, and to bond together, and to have, you know, there's so many pieces of it, and to bring my family together, and all of these things that I believe my child will give me, but if I want those things, I would be also a bit full of shit if I told myself I can't have those things. Now, of course I can have those things. Now, of course I can bond my family close together. Now, of course I can have beautiful adventures with Paul and things that we bond over. Of course I can love and pour my love into things and teach people it's literally my whole business. So I can still have those things. I can still have those things when I was single. The way that I used to say it is like, when I found my person, I'll be able to do more cool shit that I really wanted to do, that none of my friends wanted to do with me. I wanted to go scuba diving. I wanted to hike up this volcano. I had this whole bucket list of shit I wanted to do. I wanted to go camping a lot more, and I thought I needed some man to do those things with. And so I was like, actually, I don't, I'll do them now. And so I stopped relying on the when I then I and I started just creating it. And then, funnily enough, you actually become a match to the thing that is lacking. You become a match to the thing that you think hasn't arrived yet, right? So there's that the second thing, or the underlying belief that tends to be at play when you think you're behind or you haven't arrived yet and you're not where you wanted to be, is this really rigid belief system that you've got to arrive in a linear fashion, for example, and this is very much conditioned. You go to uni, or maybe not. You finish school, you get good grades, you go to uni, you get the job, you get promoted, and that's how you arrive at your destination, right? It's linear. It's like this. You go to Step A, Step B, Step C, and then eventually you get to your destination. And if we have the belief that it's going to be linear and that it's going to be straight and that it's going to be straightforward, and it's not going to come with steps backwards and side, steps and pivots. We're going to make ourselves wrong whenever there is that. And so, like I said in my scenario, I remember feeling like I'd never arrived with my career ever. I could never figure it out. I'd done three degrees, two degrees of diploma, all the study, all the jobs I'd flip flopped around. I was becoming, I was coming up to my 30th, and I was like, oh shit, I'm about to, I'm about to burn it all to the ground again and start again. And I was like, ah. And if, because I had this underlying belief that I should arrive in a linear way, I should use this degree to get this specific job. I should use this qualification to do this specific role, it would wobble me and make me feel like, Oh, well, then am I doing something wrong by taking a non linear path? And when you believe that it has to be one way, what that means is you don't give yourself permission to experiment. You don't give yourself permission to go outside the box, to think outside the box of how it should be. You don't give yourself to creatively explore. You don't give yourself permission to just try it out. And what I have found is, in the trying out, when it doesn't make sense, in the giving things a go, in the trying things out, you actually get more clarity. But in this old paradigm of you take step a and Step B and Step C, and then you arrive and you are deemed worthy by society. In that old paradigm, there is no room for you experiment for most of your 20s, and you fuck it up a lot. Or you experiment. How many people would say, I don't know they had one or two marriages and then they met their person, because it took them that long to learn who they really are or what they really value in a relationship, or to consciously communicate. Maybe that's their path. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong if you've career hopped like I have, if you've had as many reinventions as Madonna, as one of my clients once said to me, If that's you, that's because we live in a new paradigm where there is so much opportunity, there is so much at our fingertips, there is so much for us to go seek. We have. I just said that like inflation's gone through the roof, which is true, and there is more financial pressure, but in the same breath, we also have so much opportunity. We have such a great standard of living. We have so much available. We can, like, Guys, how fucking wild is it that you can start a business? I started a multi six figure business from a gum tree laptop that I got secondhand for 500 bucks. Like that's the kind of prosperity and opportunity that is available to us, and this is someone who had three degrees that were completely unrelated. So what I'm saying is we are in an era of testing things. We are in an era of reaping the opportunity that is available to us, of an online world of so many new jobs coming up that didn't even exist 10 years ago, 20 years ago. 30 years ago, if you want to retrain, you fucking can, because it's not the old paradigm where there's one way. So in the job context, it used to be that you stick your loyalty out with one company, and then you get your badge and your celebration and your bloody cake, and they give you a cake in the staff room and say, Well done for staying 10 years. Now, people are like, F that I'm moving on as if it doesn't suit me, and if I can see better for myself, if I can learn more somewhere else, if I want to work online, if I want to work in Bali, if I want to work from home, I can do it. There's so much opportunity. So we're actually in an era where it's starting to become more normalized. We're normalizing. I think I've just figured out how to articulate this. We are normalizing. We're starting to normalize. And an era and a paradigm of, we get to choose, and when it no longer serves, we get to jump ship. But there's still an old operating system of, this is the one linear way, and you mustn't jump ship. It has to be this way. So it's like we're moving through and we're leaving behind an old paradigm, but the hangover of it is, am I allowed to do this? Am I really behind? Am I falling behind? Are other people further ahead than me, etc, etc. The new paradigm is, try lots of shit. Experiment with stuff. Let yourself be reborn, let yourself rediscover, let yourself charter new territories. What a fucking time to be alive. What a time to be alive and and sometimes it's not where you want to be. I fucking get that. I get that like, maybe you're like, cool Breanna, but I actually want a partner shut the fuck up. Or maybe you're like, cool Breanna, but I actually want a child. I get it. Maybe you're like, cool Breanna, but my business isn't where I wanted it to be, and all my friends are thriving, and I feel like a loser. I fucking get it. And that brings me to the third thing, which is comparison. Comparison. I'm not gonna say the cliche thing, but I am gonna say the cliche thing. I'm gonna say the cliche thing. Comparison is a thief of joy. But here is why I don't always believe that comparison is the thief of joy. If you use the law of relativity against yourself, what does that mean? The law of relativity. I haven't even stopped for a sip of my cuppa. Hold on. I'm so sorry if you're someone who's like, oh my god, I hate the sound of people drinking and eating Sorry, not sorry. So the law of relativity is that nothing is good or bad, right or wrong, big or small, until it is in comparison to or relative to something else. So in our society, and because it's human nature, we typically use the law of relativity to beat ourselves up, to feel like we're behind and to feel like we're not there. Yet, we use the law of relativity to go these people are further ahead than me. My friend has three investment properties and a seven figure portfolio. This friend has three babies on the way, and a husband who's incredible. This friend has, I don't know, whatever the thing is, passport stamps and the Yolo lifestyle, and I'm not there yet. Whatever the thing is, we're using the law of relativity to stack ourselves under someone who we deem as further along, right? So when you do that, when you're looking, quote upwards at the people further along, you're always going to come out second best. But you could just as easily use the law of relativity to look the other direction, but we don't. And that's not to say you can look at people, look down at people, or make yourself better or more superior, but the law of relativity is you're just comparing yourself to people further along and using it to either shame spiral or make yourself feel worse than worse off. And essentially, it's not good for anything. Sometimes when I have found myself trapped in that place which I can do, where I'm a human and it happens where I'm like, oh my god, oh my god. I remember thinking that far out, like I'm starting a business from scratch. All my all my friends like buying their second properties. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna do a business. They're like, Oh God, here she goes again. Like, there's so many times where I've thought e I'm really behind, and I would think that, and then go, okay, but look the other direction. Look the other direction. What about the people like and this is almost like a thing of gratitude and just a leveling playing field of what about the people who had to save for years and years and years just to get through their degree? What about the people who failed their degrees, the ones that you outperformed at uni, who actually had to repeat semesters and semesters and semesters, and they're actually way behind. What about the people who didn't get into the market? When I did, I got into the housing market at a very, very good time. What about the people who didn't get in? What about the people who you know haven't figured out, like, there's so many ways that you can. Use this to look the other way, and that can help so much, because there's always someone, and this isn't from a like toxic, positive place, but it is helpful to use the law of relativity to go there's actually always someone who is worse off than me. There is and there's someone where I'm actually ahead. And this is something that I find a lot of business owners. Business owners often get in their head. Coaches get in their head with imposter syndrome. This is a random side tangent, but it is what it is. It's me. So I see a lot of coaches get in their head because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm not like, I'm not. Who am I to teach this? You know, who am I to teach XYZ when I've only done who am I to teach business when I'm only at 20k months? And I'm like, Okay, but what about the women that you can teach who haven't even made$1,000 a month? What about the women who are actually you are so far in front of someone that you're valuable to them. You are always ahead of someone, and you can use that to remind yourself that you're only behind depending on who you're comparing yourself to, and usually the people that you're comparing yourself to, have different values, and therefore it is apples and oranges. So all of this is to say there is so much that you can do to be in an empowered place, even when you're in that mushy, uncomfortable, not there yet, season. And like I said, I do feel you. I get it. I'm in the mush. Like I've said, I'm in the mush with you. I am not yet. I am not yet a butterfly I haven't seen, I can't see my wings yet. I'm in the mush. I'm in the becoming season. And I'm also making the most out of it. I'm making a fun time of the not there yet. I'm making the fun time of the fuck. I'm like, 34 nearly 35 I don't have babies yet. I'm making a fun time of it. I've just had a zoom call with my besties, and they were like, well, if you're not pregnant by this date, let's all go to and we chose the country, and we're making lemonade. We're making lemonade. And like I said, it's important that you recognize that we're often behind, but only when we use the old program, the old paradigm. If you can remember that you're in a season where the world is your oyster, where you get to decide how you want to show up, where you get to rewrite the paradigm and use the new narrative, this new way of being, to create this opportunity for yourself to go explore, to try new things, to leverage the strength of the season you're in. That's the thing I'm going to leave you with, even if you're in a season where you're not quite where you wanted to be, even if you're in a season where you feel behind, leverage it, because there will be a strength to what you perceive as a deficit. For example, the strength to my deficit right now is that I have all the time in the world, all the time in the world to give to my business, to give to my clients, and that is going to give me so much when I am on maternity leave. I can set up so much because I can. I've got the time. I've got the time. I don't have the kids yet, and that's something that I can leverage and use to my advantage if you don't have a partner yet. While that seems I know, frustrating, heartbreaking, fucking annoying, like I remember, trust me, I was like, the biggest Tinder whore, and I was a tinder Ella. That's what I meant to say, Mum, if you're listening, I was not a tinder whore. I was a tinder Ella. I loved Tinder. So while it was annoying, the strength to it was I actually got to go on so many dates and really learn what I actually was after, what who I clicked with, who I didn't click with. I got better at dating. I got better at going into rooms and introducing myself to people. I got better at doing things on my own, without depending on people. There is always a strength to what you perceive as a deficit. If you are not where you want to be yet financially, use this as your fucking fuel. Go to every seminar you can about wealth creation, read every book you can get out on top. Use your deficit as a strength, and then you will find years from now, you'll be further along, and then the fallacy will continue. You'll get to the place that you wanted to be, and then you'll go, oh, but the next thing, when I'm there. So just make sure you don't fall for that too. So I hope you loved this episode. I loved this episode. It was a fun one for me, and I love being back. Like I said, time off is the best thing ever when it's done in the right way. So if you loved this episode, please help me to share it. Please help me to get it all over the interwebs, all over the airwaves. It means a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot that we grow this podcast spread this bad boy. So subscribe first. Please subscribe and then share this all over your socials. Tag me. Get in my DMs. Tell me if you're loving it. I would love to hear from you. Where are you at with your behind the eight ball? How are you feeling after this episode? I want to hear all of it. My DMS open. I love you so much. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next week.