How to Make a Decision You Won’t Regret Later

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Oh my gosh, I am so glad you're here with me. It's Mel, and do I have a story to tell you. So last week, I flew home to Michigan to be with my mom and dad for my dad's 80th birthday. All I'm going to say, it did not go according to plan. Here is the progression. It was supposed to be birthday party, but it was pickleball, birthday party, then back surgery. 10 days later, I'm still there. Well, I lived to talk about it. And I also learned four amazing things that are going to change my relationship with my parents forever. And these same four insights are going to help you with any single relationship. They're going to make it way, way better. And I'll tell you what, I could not wait to get home. And I couldn't wait to get home to get on this mic so I could tell you all about it.

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel. I am so excited to be back home. I'm so excited to be spending some time together with you. And I have been waiting to tell you this story about pickleball, back surgery, and my dad's 80th birthday. If you're new, I just want to take a quick minute before I get into all the details and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing to be here with me. And this is the perfect episode to start with.

Mel Robbins: So I mentioned pickleball, back surgery, and my dad's 80th birthday. Do I have a story to tell you? But all joking aside, there is this quote that I saw the other day. I loved it so much that I posted it online. I want to share it with you. There is a clock ticking that you cannot see. So love whoever loves you and enjoy your life. When I read that, there's a clock ticking that you cannot see. So love whoever loves you and enjoy your life. It really hit me. And I have taken this to heart.

Mel Robbins: I'm in this season or chapter of my life where it's just very important to me to prioritize time with my family, both my immediate family, my extended family, and in particular, my parents. I do have this sense that there is a clock ticking that I cannot see. My dad just turned 80. And if I do the math, I'm going to be lucky if I get to spend 10 more birthdays with him. And I'll be damned. I'm not going to miss a single one of them. And that's kind of what this whole story is about, is the experience of going back to the hometown where I grew up in, all for the purpose of celebrating my dad's 80th birthday and some surprising things that happened related to pickleball that I'll get into in a minute, but also surprising things, wake-up calls really about my relationship with my parents and the things that I can do to make it better.

Mel Robbins: And I'm just going to set the table by saying I feel very lucky because I do have a really good relationship with my family, all things considered. We really love each other, but there is tension. We get caught up in this stupid stuff. There's always stuff that people are holding on to. But at some point, you're going to realize that there is this clock that you can't see and time is going to run out. I don't know what your relationship is like with your parents. I don't know if they're still here. I don't know if it's filled with tension, if there are grudges, but I do know this. There is an invisible clock that is ticking in the background. And at some point, that time that you have with them is going to run out. And this has been on my mind a lot, especially as my parents are getting older. And even though my relationship with my parents is solid, I would love to make it better.

Mel Robbins: I think one of the things that impacts my relationship with my family and that creates this tension is that we don't live near each other. If you don't live near your parents or your family, there's so much pressure that's built up around the times that you do get together that it adds this layer of expectation that that I think heightens everything. You know, I live in Southern Vermont. My parents still live in the house that I grew up in, in Western Michigan. And before we jump into the story, I just want to give a huge shout out to my mom and dad, Marsha and Bob Schneeberger. Thank you, thank you, thank you for allowing me to share this story. This is not a story at all about anything that you guys are doing wrong. This is a story about the things that I saw in my own behavior, ways that I can show up differently and take responsibility for creating a better relationship with my parents. And this story goes way beyond your relationship with your parents. It's four insights that will help you show up and take responsibility for how you are in any relationship in your life.

Mel Robbins: All right, so let's get into it. My dad just turned 80. He was adamant he did not want a party for his 80th birthday. And on top of it, he happens to share his birthday with my twin nephews who were turning 16 on the same day my dad was turning 80. And ever since the twins were born, my dad just loves spending his birthday with them and making it all about them. And so like I'm telling you all of these details because this is sort of the backdrop of what was going on. And even though there was no kind of set plans and we weren't sure, okay, the twins live outside of Chicago, are they gonna be in Chicago? But my parents are up in Michigan, where's everyone gonna be? I knew one thing for sure. I wanted to be with my dad on his 80th, whether there was a party or not. And so I got it into my head. How awesome would it be if all five of us, Chris, myself, and all three of our adult kids all descended down on North Muskegon, Michigan to the house where I grew up for my dad's 80th birthday.

Mel Robbins: And this was difficult to coordinate. I'm sure your family and your life is just as crazy as ours. We've got a kid on the West Coast. We've got three adult kids. They've got jobs. They've got school. I felt like I needed to call a logistics coordinator at UPS to help me figure this whole thing out. And on top of it, my dad's birthday in August just so happened to fall on this date where there was this teeny little window, right, where my daughter has time off from work in LA. Our son isn't ready to go to college yet. He's got another week. So there's this teeny little like three-day window where all five of us could get on a plane and get there. And one more thing, it's not an easy place to get to. If I were to hop in the car with my family of five, it would take us between 16 and 18 hours to drive to my parents' house. So we're talking all freaking day in a car. Or if we wanted to spend the money on plane tickets for five people, we have to take two planes. And the airport from our house here in Vermont is an hour and a half away, two flights to get to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then it's another hour to get to my parents' house. So not exactly an easy, oop, we'll just be there in three hours.

Mel Robbins: So I say, doesn't matter. We're going. He's turning 80. We're going. So I pick up the phone and I call my mom and dad and I say, hey, guys, guess what? We're going to come for the weekend and we're going to be there for dad's birthday. And my mom said, well, if you can only come for the weekend, I don't think you should come. And my dad chimes in. Yeah, you know, don't bother. We just saw you. We're going to see you in a little bit. It's not a big deal. We're going to be together over the holidays. I'll see you in a couple months. I was like, dad, you only turn 80 once. We will come. And he goes, well, if you're going to come, I would prefer that you come like in September when you could spend more time with us. I'm like, but dad, I can't spend more time with you in September. It's even busier in September at work. And Kendall lives in Los Angeles and Oakley will be in college and we can't all get there. And finally, after all of this dancing back and forth, he said, well, if you can only come for three nights, I don't think it's worth it. And then my mom chimed in and said, I actually don't think it's going to work for us. We don't know where the twins are going to be. And we want to make sure that we prioritize their 16th birthday. And besides the day after dad's birthday, we've got friends showing up that we have been wanting to see for six months. They've been planning to come with us. And if you guys are there, and I'm telling you the details because I guarantee you, you have had this experience before too, where you're trying to make plans and there's this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Mel Robbins: And so finally I'm like, okay, fine, no problem. And my daughter was like, I just have to get back to LA and go back to work anyway. Oakley was like, well, if it's not going to work, then I'm going to stay home because this is last weekend before I'm going to go to college. And my parents were like, well, I don't blame them. And then Chris offered to come with me. And I was like, well, don't bother, stay here with Oakley and Sawyer. And that was that. And I said, I don't care what you think, mom and dad, I'm still coming. And so I booked a three-day trip. I flew to Michigan. And let me tell you why. I went because I wanted to, and it had nothing to do with guilt. The old me would have booked the trip out of guilt. I would have been a martyr. I would have felt obligated. I would have had this heavy heart like I had to be there. I would have been a terrible daughter if I didn't show up, but I didn't do that at all. And that brings me to this insight, this first insight that I want to share with you. There is a big difference between someone else thinking you're a good person or a good daughter or a good son and you knowing that you are one.

Mel Robbins: I'm going to say that again, there's a big difference between someone else thinking you're a good daughter or a good son and you knowing that you're one. And that insight has helped me create this huge breakthrough around guilt. Because I realized that if you don't want to be controlled by guilt, just act in a way that makes you proud of yourself. So many people struggle with guilt and you know you're struggling with guilt from the moment that you say, well, I should or I have to, or they're going to be mad, or my parents are going to kill me, or I'm never going to hear the end of this. And the thing about guilt is that when you do something out of guilt, particularly with your family, it's the same thing as saying you're doing it because you're obligated and you have no choice, which means when you do something out of guilt, you make the other person the villain. When you do something for your mother because you quote, feel guilty, you're making your mother the bad guy. When you do something with your family because, oh, I would feel so guilty or my mother's making, or my dad's making me feel so guilty, they're suddenly the villain. Screw that. Take responsibility for your own actions and your relationships and the kind of person that you want to be. Because the fastest way to make guilt disappear and just like evaporate from your life is to choose what you do and what you don't do intentionally.

Mel Robbins: Here's how you do it. Do not spend time with your parents or anyone else because you feel guilty. Do not spend time with them because they will think you're a good daughter. Choose to spend time with people because it makes you feel like a good daughter. Choose to do things because it makes you proud of yourself. That's why you do it. See, when you feel obligated, now there's tension in the relationship. When you make a choice because it makes you feel good about yourself, you're now acting in a way that is aligned with your values. And there's a very big difference. It took me almost 55 years to figure this out. Don't spend time with your parents because it makes your parents happy. Do it because it makes you happy to know that you're prioritizing something that matters to you. Do you see the power switch in that? It matters to me to be physically there for my dad's 80th birthday. And doing things that matter to me makes me happy about me. It matters to me to be the kind of daughter who showed up for important life moments. I mean, if anything happened to my father and I hadn't been there, I would never forgive myself for missing his 80th birthday. So I'm not waiting around until some moment in the future when it's convenient. I'm not doing this because of guilt. I am doing this because I choose to act in a way that makes me proud of myself. Do you hear how empowered that is? There's no room for guilt when you own your own decisions.

Mel Robbins: And I want to add one deeper point. And it relates to this like, ah, that can be really frustrating about trying to nail down plans, especially with your parents as they're getting older and they're getting kind of more set in their ways. That dance and that kind of like, don't come, do come. I don't know if it's gonna work. What do you mean you can only come for the weekend? Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. It can drive you crazy. But if you take a breath and you drop in a little deeper and you tap into what's actually going on beneath the surface that's driving that kind of ah at the top, there's something really important happening that we don't talk about in relationships. Because when you go underneath, whether it's irritation or frustration or anger or, you know, kind of this tension that you're not going to stay as long as somebody has hoped you would or that, you know, somebody expected something different, what you find when you get underneath the dance, so to speak, is sadness and grief and hurt and loneliness.

Mel Robbins: You know, I think the truth is, is that the older I get and the older my parents get, the more I realize that underneath the tension and the dance and the like, ah, of trying to schedule time to see each other, all that's there is that we're all just sad. We're sad that we don't live near each other and that we don't know how to express that sadness. And you hear me getting really choked up because I, I mean, I haven't lived in my hometown since I was, God, 18 years old. That was like 38 years ago. So when your parents say things that feel like anger, don't come, I'm fine, I'll figure it out. Yeah, do what works for you. Give them the space to express emotion in a not so supportive way. It would be way more evolved for somebody to say, I'm sorry if I sound upset. I just deeply miss you. And I wish I saw you more often. You know, I realized it's often the only way that my parents or most people know how to express themselves. It's just kind of the, ah, because they haven't done the work to understand the deeper feelings. But frankly, they just don't want to talk about them because they don't want to feel them because it's really uncomfortable. And so when you don't want to talk about the deeper thing, what happens on the surface is you lash out or you're irritated or you're frustrated or you just kind of vent or you express guilt. And it feels like it's over some sort of petty issue. Trust me when I tell you the thing on the surface is petty, but it is tapped into something way deeper that's actually really profound. And it's probably been building for years. And knowing that will give you the capacity to allow that dance that happens that normally would bother you. Just take a beat in those moments and understand this is actually something deeper, remind yourself. These things that are petty on the surface always tap into deeper feelings, not just for your parents, by the way, but they're also tapping into deeper feelings that you probably haven't looked at either about the relationship or the situation or the things that have built up.

Mel Robbins: And so don't let that dance stop you from making the effort to create that deeper connection, both with yourself and with them. It really, really matters because that clock is ticking. And I got so much more to tell you about this weekend, about the story. We're going to do that after we hear a short word from our amazing sponsors. So take a listen, and I will be waiting for you after a short break.

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Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I am so happy you are with me today and I am excited to be able to tell you this story about pickleball, back surgery, my dad's 80th birthday, and these insights that I had just last week after spending 10 days with them. So let's go back to the story.

Mel Robbins: So I booked the ticket. I planes, trains, and automobiles make my way from Southern Vermont to Western Michigan. I get home. I love being home. I love how happy my parents are when I'm home. I love sitting out on the back porch and looking at the lake and feeling the breeze. It's just amazing. And I was really excited because even though my dad was not having a party, I convinced my mother, because I'm kind of a pain in the ass, for her to have a little surprise for my dad because it is his 80th and she invited a bunch of his golf buddies over for a little bit of a surprise. And I went on to Amazon. This is a great hack to steal. And I ordered a bunch of stuff and shipped it to my parents' house. What did I order? Well, I ordered a huge balloon arch because what is an 80th birthday party without a make your own $7 balloon arch with 120 balloons? That was number one. Number two, I ordered all of these happy 80th birthday themed plates and napkins and cups and all this stuff. Number three, I ordered my dad an 80th birthday crown, which of course I made him wear for his entire birthday. And I took photos, but best of all, my mom and dad love to play pickleball. They play pickleball literally every day. So I saw this thing online that I'm like, I've got to get that for my parents. And what I saw was this. It was this video of these four people playing pickleball, only they were wearing these inflatable costumes. And so I want you to picture this. Picture four people on a court, you know, playing this paddle game, this pickleball game, but they are wearing these costumes that blow up from the waist down. So it looks like they are riding horses. And as they're playing pickleball, every one of them is in this big kind of costume and they're trying to run around. I was like, this is going to be amazing. I'm going to get four of them. So I got a flamingo, I got a cow, I got a rooster. And what was the other one? Oh, I got a flamingo, a cow, a rooster, and an elephant. They were amazing. And I had them all shipped to my house. And of course, when the boxes arrived, my mom's like, what is this? What are you up to? And I'm thinking, I'm going to just let her have that because I know she doesn't want me to make a fuss, but the second this stuff comes out, bada bing, bada boom, it's party time. And sure enough, his friends come over. We have a surprise party. It's absolutely fantastic. We break out the inflatable costumes. My dad is wearing his crown. He's smiling all night long. My mom makes everybody get into the inflatable costumes and take pictures with my father while he's wearing the crown. I mean, it was absolutely amazing. And I am so happy I did it. I am so so happy I did not ask my mom if it would be okay if I order decorations or if I get these costumes. I just did it. And I'm so glad I did. And that brings me to the second lesson that I learned. You have to stop waiting for an invitation or a celebration and you have to create it.

Mel Robbins: See, there are two things that you and I sit around and wait for when it comes to making plans, particularly with family. One is an invitation and the other is big events that you're celebrating. And I want to talk about these things separately because there's a little nuance here. It doesn't need to be a holiday or an anniversary or a big event for you to spend time with your parents. And if you're like me and you don't live near your parents, that's what ends up happening. When you have kids and everybody's schedule is busy, that's what ends up happening. You wait for a holiday, an anniversary, a big event, some three-day weekend when you consolidate all this time. Don't do that because years go by as you waiting for the right time to happen or you waiting for the celebration. The truth is for most of us, work is hybrid. You could actually go for two days during the week. And so in addition to not waiting for some reason to celebrate, just go. I don't want you to wait for an invitation. And I've come to realize, especially as I've gotten older, everyone waits around for an invitation. Stop doing that. Pick up the phone and don't say, I want to come see you. When would work? Say, I'm coming and here's the weekend. When you pick up the phone and you call your parents and you go, hey, I'm going to come home in two weeks, you're either going to hear amazing or you're going to hear two weeks. What? And if you get the what? Then say, what about this weekend? Oh, that doesn't work because you have friends in town that weekend. No problem. We're still going to come. We're going to get a hotel. Tell them you're coming. This is so important because I do think that life has gotten so busy that we're kind of sitting around waiting for someone else to invite us. Don't wait for the invitation. Just say you're coming.

Mel Robbins: Now, I have one caveat, okay? Because there was this other thing that happened with my parents earlier this year. And again, a lot's happening with my parents because I'm making it a priority to spend more time with them. So every single year during the first week of July, for the past five years, my husband and I have rented this awesome beach house in Rhode Island. And then we invite my parents to come from Michigan. We invite my brother and his wife and their two kids, the two nephews that just turned 16 to come as well. And we spend this awesome week together at this beach house. We've done it for five years. It's always the first week of July. And when my parents were in Vermont in June for my son's high school graduation, I said to my mom and dad, so, you know, are you guys going to come to Rhode Island? And they were kind of cagey and noncommittal about it. And a couple of days later, I was on the phone with my brother and my brother said, you didn't hear this from me, but I just want you to know the reason why mom and dad are not coming to Rhode Island is because you haven't invited them. My first reaction was you're kidding me and I'm telling you this not to make my parents wrong. I'm telling you this because I fell into this trap of taking for granted the fact that they just knew that there was an open invitation. I just operated as if they assumed that they were invited. And you do that a lot with your family when you're like, everybody's invited for Christmas. There's always an invitation at our house on this holiday. You just need to come. And what I've found is just like you need to pick up the phone when you want to see someone and say, I'm coming, here's the date, and then wait for their reaction. When you want people to come see you, you have to extend an actual invitation. And this may sound obvious, but I think we miss this point with our family because it's easy to sit back and say, if they wanted to see me, they would come. If they cared about me, they would fly to Los Angeles and see me. If they wanted to spend time with me, they would make the effort. And it's true, they should. But what happens for most people I've now realized is that when they see that you're busy, they assume that means too busy to take time off to see you. And so when I stepped back and I thought about it from my parents' point of view, even though this has been going on for five years and it's the same week every year, when I step into their shoes and I imagine what it must look like to look at Mel and Chris's life and three adult kids and the amount of plans that we have and the coming and the going and the changes and how busy the kids are. Isn't it perfectly reasonable for someone to assume that maybe this year wasn't going to work out? That maybe the fact that you haven't gotten a call and said, hey, we got the house again and these are the dates and we hope you can come that maybe that call didn't come because it's not happening? I mean, the old me would have reacted like, oh, are you kidding? They're meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh. And you probably do this too. Oh, they never come to Christmas. They never come to this. Have you actually invited them? Like for real, these dates, this is what I would like you to bring. This is who's coming. You can stay with us. Please bring the dog. I'd really love to see you. I don't think we do that enough. I think we operate in our lives, assuming other people know they're always invited, and then we hold it against them when they don't come. And when I look at my parents and I step into their shoes and I think, well, of course they need an invitation. They would have to book an airplane ticket. They got to plan this. They've got to have somebody take care of things in Michigan for them while they're gone. So when it's you, your approach is I'm coming, here are the dates. When it's someone else that you'd like to see, you have to pick up the phone and actually invite them.

Mel Robbins: All right. I haven't even told you the part about why my dad needed back surgery. So we're going to hit that part of the story after we hear a short word from our amazing sponsors. Don't you dare go anywhere. I'm going to be waiting for you after this short break. Stay with me.

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Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I want to jump right back into the story because I forgot the most important part, which is how my dad injured his back. So my dad's birthday party, fantastic. We got the costumes up. Everything's amazing. My dad has a great time. It's really fun. I'm thrilled that I'm there. My nephews are up there. My brother's there. It's just awesome. And it's around this time that my mom discloses that tomorrow when we're going to actually play pickleball, my dad cannot play because despite the fact that he's been smiling this entire time, he has hurt his back horribly playing pickleball and he needs an MRI and that he is pretty convinced that he has dislocated or done something to one of the discs in his back. And now that she's saying it, I'm realizing that he has been not himself. He isn't as smiley. He's kind of like pretending everything's okay, but you can tell it's not okay. And he's also a doctor. And so the thing about doctors is that they do think they know everything and they are the world's worst patients. And so he goes in to the MRI, he gets his MRI, they don't have a radiologist on. So when he gets home, he's all grumpy because he couldn't see the film. And that's not how things work today. The next morning, you know what my dad did? My dad got into the car and drove to the hospital that he used to work at to see if he could find a radiologist to read his MRI thing because his back was hurting so much. My mom, she was just like, your father, I'm not stopping. I'm like, dad, you want me to go with you? He's like, no, no, no, I got it. I got it. I'm like, you sure? You got a back injury and you're driving and you're 80 years old and you're about to go to a hospital. Let me, no, I got it. Thank you, but I got it. So he goes and then he comes back and he's even more frustrated because as he tells me, it's not how hospitals work anymore. There's not even a radiologist on site at the hospital. For crying out loud, they sit at home and they look at their films and I can't get somebody to look at this until Monday morning, but I got an appointment on Monday morning. Holy cow. So he gets an MRI. We wait for the results. My dad goes into a doctor's appointment with a back surgeon on Monday, walks out of it, and tells me that they have scheduled surgery for the end of the week. Now, I got to tell you something. When you hear 80 years old, back surgery, end of the week, that's terrifying. I don't care how easy of a surgery it is. I don't care that my dad's a former doctor and that he's in decent shape. Back surgery, 80-year-old, oh my God. And the one thing I knew for sure, there was no way in hell I was going anywhere. I was staying in Michigan as long as it was going to take to support them through this surgery. I immediately knew what I needed to do. I picked up the phone. I called Chris. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here. I called my business partner. I don't care what's going on this week at work. Cancel it. I'm staying here. There was no way in hell I was getting back on a plane to fly to Vermont while my dad was undergoing routine back surgery. No freaking way. And so I stayed. I stayed all week in my childhood bedroom. That house has barely changed in 38 years. I have not spent 10 days at home since I think I got married almost 28 years ago. And I know you're thinking, well, how did the surgery go? It was your classic hometown thing. So we drive my dad in to Trinity Health Hospital, where he used to practice, by the way. The back surgeon I went to high school with. He also happened to be one of my dad's former partners in orthopedics. Talk about small town Michigan. He greeted us, made us super comfortable. Also turns out there were a lot of fans of the Mel Robbins podcast that work at Trinity Health Hospital. It was so cute. Bunch of the nurses and PAs came down. One of them whispers, I hope this isn't a HIPAA violation, but I heard you were in the hospital and I had to come down and say hi to you. And dad surgery went dynamite. The issue is going to be that my dad follow the instructions because he a very active guy and the man is not allowed to golf or play pickleball for six months. He got to give it time to heal. And then I stayed with my mom and my brother for the rest of the week to, it's not even like help take care of my dad to make sure that he actually followed the doctor's instructions. And that brings me to the third takeaway. It is pretty remarkable what happens when you step back into your parents' world. Even if you live near them, you probably aren't even aware of what their day-to-day life looks like. It's easy to forget that this is your parents' first time at this thing called Life 2, and they have their own little world and their whole group of friends. And what was amazing about being there is that I not only kind of stepped back into my parents' world, but I also got to see my best friend from elementary school because like me, she was home seeing her parents and like me, she has lived away from her parents for the last 38 years. And over the years, we have both talked about how much sadness there is that whether you have a great relationship or a relationship filled with tension or a complicated relationship, if you don't live near your family or if you don't have a supportive family, there is this sense of grief that you're missing out on something. And my best friend, Jodi, just upended her life and moved from Santa Barbara back to White Lake, Michigan to move in with her parents because her parents are getting older and because she is so far away. And being there at the same time that she had moved back to be with her parents while I was there, helping my mom and my dad as my dad went through surgery. Oh my God. It is so eye-opening to not only realize that that clock that you cannot see is ticking and the time that you have is slipping through your fingers, but it's also extremely eye-opening to see your parents' life through their eyes and how they experience it. And it was a real wake-up call to truly understand that my parents don't have either of their kids living in the same town. And they're surrounded by people who have at least one kid living in the town that I grew up in. And the fact is they have had to create a support system amongst their friends. And so it made a lot of sense to me why my mom would go, well, don't come if the only weekend that you can come is also right on top of some of our close friends coming to see us, something that we have planned on for six