If you’re feeling like you’re behind in some area of your life, today’s episode is a must-listen. Mel is directly addressing one of the most requested topics of all time: when you don’t feel like you’re on the “right timeline” compared to everyone else around you. By the time you finish listening, the way you view your entire life will change. In this episode, Mel goes decade by decade, and speaks to the pressures that people face in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s and 90s. She will hit, head on, the “invisible checklist” and myths that are making you feel stressed out and behind in life. If you’ve ever felt like you should… -Have your career figured out by now -Have already met the love of your life -Have more money in the bank -Own a home -Find a life partner if you want to have kids -Be less stressed and happier -Have found purpose and meaning -Be ready to retire-Found your lifelong friendsToday’s episode is for you. Mel is going to liberate you from the expectations of society, your family, your friends, and even the ones you’re putting on yourself. She has the facts, the science, the psychology, and thousands of listener comments to back everything up. This is an episode you do not want to miss, and that you’ll want to share with everyone you love. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode. If you liked this episode, the next one you should listen to is: What Makes a Good Life? Lessons From the Longest Study on HappinessConnect with Mel: Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer
Chapter 1: What does it mean to feel behind in life?
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited you're here because today you and I are going to dig into a topic that has been on your mind. This topic is stressing you out, and I know this because you've been flooding the inbox at melrobbins.com telling me that you feel like you're behind in life.
as if there's some sort of invisible checklist that you're supposed to complete by a certain age. You know, if you're in your 20s, you're writing me saying, I'm behind. I don't know what I want to do with my life. Or those of you in your 30s, you feel this pressure that by now you should have kids. You should have found the one. You should be buying a house.
And I so relate to the feeling that you can have in your 40s, 50s, and 60s that you've really screwed up your career. You didn't save enough money or you got a divorce. You've made so many mistakes. And now it's too late.
It's even stressing you out if you're in your 70s and 80s, this sense that there's some perfect way you're supposed to go through life, these boxes that you're supposed to be checking in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s. And so today, I am so excited to talk to you about this because I have so much research to share with you.
And this is research that is going to give you so much freedom and power. Hear me loud and clear. Being a 20-year-old today is not the same experience as it was even five years ago. Being 60 years old today, not the same experience as it was even just five or 10 years ago.
And the expectations that society has, that your friends have, that your family have about where you're supposed to be, they're wrong. Today's conversation is gonna blow your mind. It's gonna liberate you from this stupid social pressure that you feel.
The facts that I'm gonna share, the simple mindset reframes that I want you and everyone that you love to adopt based on the decade that you're in right now, the mindset that you need for your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s and beyond, This is a mindset that is going to set you free and help you take control of where you are in your life right now.
Before we dive in, I want you to know you got to stick around until a bonus segment after the bloopers. It's all about reframing, refocusing, and reprioritizing so you can actually reach your goals in 2025. And it's all thanks to our friends at Walmart Plus, the membership that makes life easier by saving you time and money with free delivery and so much more.
I will see you after the bloopers, and you're going to love this bonus segment. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm absolutely thrilled that you're here. I am thrilled that you're here because, first of all, it's always such an honor to spend time with you, to be together, but I'm also thrilled because the topic today is fan culture. It is so interesting.
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Chapter 2: What is the concept of the social clock and how does it affect us?
So Dr. Waldinger takes Bernice Newgarten's research about this social clock even a step further because he says it's not just society and things like we got to retire at 65 or we got to graduate by the time we're 18 that put pressure on us. But there's also social clocks that you may feel based on your upbringing. or based on influences like your friends, or news, or social media, or movies.
They create this sense that, oh my gosh, okay, that's what other people are doing right now, so that's what I need to be doing right now. Whether it's, oh, my friends are now all leaving big cities and moving out to where the mountains are, and maybe I need to be doing that. Or, oh my gosh, my best friend just got engaged and I'm still single, maybe I need to be doing that right now.
And they also differ from culture to culture. Generation to generation, which we're about to get into, like when I unfold how different life was one or two human beings ago and how we still live by some of the same social clocks as people had 50 years ago. You're going to think to yourself, this is ridiculous. Why am I doing this to myself?
And Dr. Waldinger writes about the fact that there are these key events in everybody's life, like when do you leave a childhood home? When are you going to enter into a committed long-term relationship? Are you having kids? And if so, at what age? When are you buying a house?
That these can also have a cultural value based on where you were raised, based on where you grew up, based on your religion, based on your grandparents and your parents' personal history.
That is what creates the sense that you're off time because you're not, quote, on time based on your parents' expectations or based on what your friends are doing or based on what is sort of valued in the culture that you grew up in. And this is where it gets really important and interesting to me. is that it's not that being off time is stressful in and of itself.
What makes it stressful is the fact that you don't think you're meeting the expectations that society or your parents or your friends have for you. That's what makes this so challenging. See, the sense of falling behind is based on falling behind to whom? Falling behind based on what? Falling behind based on whose expectations? That's what's at the heart of this.
And that's why I think this is so commonplace in terms of an experience that you're feeling right now, that there is this crazy expectation that society has for where you're supposed to be in your life based on your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and you've just adopted it. When is the exact age that you should go to nursing school? When is the time limit for when you could apply to go back to school?
Where's the time limit to you reinventing your career? Where's the time limit for where you can no longer get good with money? There isn't one. And that's why this whole notion that you're behind in life is a freaking joke. And it's time to stop playing into it. At the beginning of the 1800s, Can you guess what the average life expectancy was here in the United States? So it's the 1800s.
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Chapter 3: How have societal expectations about life milestones changed over time?
First of all, this notion that you're too late to apply to med school is a lie. You can apply to med school at the age of 80. There is no age limit for applying to medical school. Even if you didn't do a pre-med major, you can do a post-bac pre-med program and then apply to law school.
There are people right now that are listening around the world that applied to law school in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. So stop putting that pressure on yourself that there was some time that you were supposed to do it, and now you're, quote, late. No, you're not. You're figuring your life out. Your 20s is a time that is full of possibility.
So before I talk about how I want you to reframe your mindset to possibility and really embrace that in your 20s, I don't want you to have things figured out. In your 20s, I want you to be exploring and figuring out who you are and what you like. And if by the age of 25, you have woken up and realized, oh my gosh, I really do feel this call to become a doctor. Great. Go explore it. Great.
Check out the possibility. Great. And for those of you who are listening, who are not in your 20s, I really need you to understand something. Being a 20-year-old today, is not the experience that you had in your 20s.
The statistics that I'm about to read to you are so sobering, and it's important for all of us, whether you're the parent or the aunt or the uncle of a 20-something, or whether you're the older brother or sister of a 20-something, or if you're a 20-something and you're beating yourself up or you're thinking you gotta have it all figured out, I really want you to hear this because it's gonna validate this sense of feeling lost
The average 20-year-old today is under so much stress and pressure and chaos right now, and it's not pressure and stress and chaos that existed five or six years ago. It's just changed. And we sit here and we look at 20-somethings and we're like, oh, they're weak or addicted to social media or all anxious or this or the other thing.
Have you stopped to consider what it's like to be a 20-something today? That first of all, five or six years ago, you went into an office, work was very predictable. You kind of knew what it was going to look like when you graduated from high school or college and you started like going into a company and commuting. That's not what work is today. Nothing is stable. It's all hybrid. It's 24-7.
In fact, Dell did some research. Did you know that 85% of jobs that are going to be around in the next 10 years haven't been created yet? Homeownership is out of reach. The generational wealth gap is absolutely massive. Nearly 10 million people right now are falling behind in their student loans. That's $250 billion worth of debt that is past due. The world is in chaos.
And most 20-somethings have parents that lived in a very predictable, stable economy. They went to a corporate job. They reported to the office. They had a network of friends at work. That's not the typical 20-year-old experience. They're now in the middle of a recession and hybrid work. The world is shifting. The landscape is shifting. People are all over the place and scattered.
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Chapter 4: Why is feeling lost in your 20s normal today?
Hey. I can't stop crying. My face is so puffy. And it's all because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I want to make a lot of money, as everyone does, but as A 25 year old coming home from an extraordinary trip and thinking I'm gonna make so much money off the bat. I'm not. And I also haven't done anything to make money either. I'm dying.
I feel like there's a million things to do and I can't do anything. My to-do list feels like so long, but on my to-do list is like call so-and-so catch up with blank stop crying oh my god oh god i will
And yes, you will be okay. And yes, you're going to figure it out. And you don't have to figure it out today. And you don't have to figure it out next week. All you got to do is keep telling yourself, I'm going to figure this out. I am capable of putting one foot in front of the other. I am capable of networking with people. I am capable of landing a job and feeling it out.
I'm capable of leaving a job if I don't like it. I'm capable of moving to another city. I'm capable of saving money because the decade of your 20s is not where you're supposed to figure it out. It's the decade of possibility where you have so many experiences because you're figuring out who you are and what you like. And none of that can be distilled down into a checklist.
And so instead of trying to check the boxes, I want you to take a step back. I want you to see that the 20s right now are really different. that it is challenging, it is overwhelming, it is confusing. And so feeling that way is normal. But the best thing that you can do is to remind yourself that you don't need to figure it out. Nobody has it figured out.
But step by step, day by day, you have to remind yourself that you have the ability to explore, to make changes, to learn about yourself. And if you do that, I promise you, you are going to wake up at the end of your 20s and go, not only am I doing okay, but I've learned a lot about myself. And you're also doing better than you think you are.
And if you're listening right now and there's a 20-something in your life, that's exactly what you need to say to them. You are gonna figure this out. Your 20s are very hard. This hybrid work thing is so confusing. Trying to network with people that don't even show up to an office, it is really difficult. You're right. And guess what? You're still gonna figure it out.
And I'm gonna be here every step of the way to support you in doing it. So stop putting the pressure on yourself, take a breath, go for a walk, and then take the next right step. That's what we need to be saying to the 20-somethings in our life. So if you're 20 years of the decade of possibility, now let's talk about your 30s.
Because the biggest lie that the social clock in this invisible checklist is telling you is that you're supposed to, quote, settle down. You got to meet the one. You got to have kids. You got to find the house and settle down and move to the burbs. That is not what you have to do. If that's what you want to do, fine. But that's not what you have to do. This checklist was created.
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Chapter 5: How should people in their 20s approach career and life decisions?
But I promise you, when you realize that it's your own insecurity and desperation around this that's narrowing the field, You got to do the opposite and open yourself up to new experiences and new people and change the filters is what everybody says. Change the filters, change the height filter, change the mileage filter, open yourself up.
I promise you, the love of your life is just around the corner. In fact, if you knew that the love of your life were right around the corner, how would you be living your life differently now? There you go. All right. Let's talk about the third big thing that is one of these milestones on the checklist in your 30s, which is I got to buy a house. I got to buy a house. I got to have my first house.
I got to have a house. I got to buy a house. I want to share, if you're in your 30s or, heck, 40s or 50s, and you're wanting to buy a home, and you're somewhere in the world where you feel like it feels out of reach, like when did real estate become so expensive? Because you're not wrong. Real estate is just, shocking's the wrong word. It's unfair, in my opinion, what's happened.
I want to share some research with you because it's different. I'm sorry, it's different. than the situation that your parents and grandparents were in when they were buying their first home. The American dream in particular is now like the American nightmare. And a lot of experts say that the vehicle that was the primary vehicle where people could establish wealth, which is buying a home,
$7,300.
Some of you may be paying that in rent every two or three months. I think you could afford a house at $7,300, but if we were to convert that in today's dollars, what would the actual cost be adjusted for inflation in today's dollars? If we were looking at kind of like, okay, well, if we do apples to apples, adjusted for today's dollars, that would be $88,000.
That means there's an 11X increase between what your grandparents were paying and what you now need to pay. What does that mean? Different world. Different reality, which means you got to have different expectations. And there's a reason why this has happened. Check this out. In 1991, the average home buyer was 35 years old. Today, the average home buyer, 56 years old.
If you live in a world where the average homebuyer is 56 years old, why on earth would you tell yourself you have to have a house by the age of 30? Why are you putting so much pressure on yourself to do this? And if you're wondering, wow, it just seems like rents and housing costs have gone up significantly in the last couple of years, it has.
In the last three years, the housing market in Boston has gone up 73%. You're not imagining this. This is the reality. And I'm sure you've even seen this in your own neighborhood. The world has changed, which means you got to change the expectations and the pressure that you put on yourself. First of all, hybrid work coming out of the pandemic, it just imploded everything.
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Chapter 6: What are the unique challenges faced by 20-somethings today?
We're going to hear a few words from our amazing sponsors. And don't go anywhere. We're going into the 40s when we return. So stay with me. Welcome back. It's your buddy, Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are talking about this concept of feeling behind in your life, unpacking research around the pressure of following the social clock and expectations of other people and societal norms.
We've already covered your 20s and your 30s. I'm thrilled that you're here. I'm thrilled that you're sharing this with people that you care about. And I'm also thrilled to talk about our 40s because... I think the 40s were one of the hardest decades of my life, but it ended being one of the best. And it can be one of your best decades too.
So the lie that people tell themselves about their 40s is that if you haven't made it yet, then you're never going to. It's complete baloney. In fact, this was my story. At the age of 41, my husband's restaurant business was failing. I had been laid off from this job that I thought was going to be my ticket. And I felt like I had made every single bad decision in my career.
I mean, I told you earlier about the number of career changes that I'd had in my 20s. I kept bouncing from one thing to the other in my 30s. I mean, I'm talking another seven different pivots. And so here I am 41, I'm about 14 jobs in, in my career. It didn't look like a resume. It looked like a choose your own disaster adventure. And now I'm feeling at the age of 41, I've completely blown it.
I've blown it. And not only have I blown it in my career, I don't have any money. We've invested everything in my husband's restaurant business. That's now failing. So you want to talk about that sense that you're not only behind, but that you've royally screwed it all up. I thought in my, there's no way I'm getting out of debt. There's no way I'm getting the liens off the house.
There's no way I'm going to be able to pay for my kid's college. There's no way I'm ever going to be successful in my career. That's how I felt at the age of 41. I wasn't just behind. I effed the whole thing up. And I'm here to tell you that you're just getting started when you hit your 40s.
And one of the best things about being in your 40s is that even if your career or your financial life is a complete train wreck like mine was, you still are not starting from scratch. That's the coolest thing. Every single thing that you've done up until this point is actually building experience, experience that you can build on. And so you're not too late.
In fact, if you look at the life expectancy of 77, you're like got 37 more years. Do you know how much you can get done in 37 years? And here's the thing I want you to really think about. If you're going to hold yourself to a standard that by the age of 40, you should have things figured out, that means that you can kind of figure things out over the next couple decades, okay?
You got plenty of time. And beating yourself up and telling yourself that you're lost and telling yourself that you've screwed up Do you know what that does? It doesn't motivate you. It actually makes you depressed. It makes you feel like a loser and you're not a loser. You just have a winding path. You are probably just stubborn like I am and you learn lessons the hard way.
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Chapter 7: What pressures do people in their 30s face about settling down?
All this stuff is impacting the financial obligations that you have, the realities that you're going to live longer. And also keep in mind that when the age of retirement hit at 65 in 1935, the life expectancy wasn't that high. And now you're living longer. And so the reality might be that you planned for a certain age, but now that you're there, you're like, wait a minute. I'm really engaged.
I don't want to just sit around and fill it with golf and Mahjong. I mean, I want to be doing something. And that's a really cool thing. Or maybe the reality is that you saved and you thought you'd be in a certain place, but now you live in a part of the world where, my God, the insurance costs are rising or you have a health condition and so you need the insurance. That's just the reality.
And so it's not a time to pressure yourself to retire unless you want to. It's a time to really think about passion and how you reignite it in your life. What can you be doing, whether it's volunteering or a different type of job or staying in what you're currently doing to keep energy and passion alive? And this is important because the research is pretty clear.
that there is a pretty deep decline in verbal memory. There's an uptick in depression and social isolation that happens when people retire because you underestimate how important it was to be engaged in a community at work
to be focused on the things that you are working on and how it stimulates your brain, the rhythm and the structure of your work life and how it gives you a sense of purpose and how it gets you out of bed in the morning. The same is true with what I was talking about with your 20s.
If all you're doing is hybrid work and you've never experienced that, not having that structure creates its own isolation and sense of being lost. The fastest growing segment of the workforce is people 65 and older. I love that people are staying engaged. I love that. And I want you to really think about it. And if you're starting to feel like, well, I'm kind of getting a forced retirement.
Well, you know, I'm needing to kind of leave gracefully. Just think about what's next. Just because you're leaving one job or you're closing the door on one chapter of your career, do you know how much you have to give to a nonprofit or you have to give to a new venture or you have to give by sitting on boards?
Stay involved because it's really going to help you stay energized and passionate in your life. When you decide to retire, choose to do it because it's what you want to do, not because society expects you to do it. You're not behind. You're not ahead. You're just living your life based on a way that makes it exciting and meaningful for you.
And if you are choosing to retire in your 60s, I want to just highlight the research, and this is important for you to share with people that you love. It is critical that that you get involved in something else. It is critical that you stay social. Do not underestimate how important this is. And do not underestimate how much that is provided by the fact that you're still working.
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Chapter 8: How to navigate relationships, marriage, and having kids in your 30s?
In fact, there was an expert that we had on the podcast by the name of Dr. Vonda Wright. She is a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon and researcher in longevity. And what she had to say about aging blew my mind. Everybody that you care about, your parents, your grandparents, need to hear this clip. Just check out what Dr. Vonda Wright has to say about getting older.
There is a pervasive myth in this country that that aging is an inevitable decline from the vitality of youth down some slippery slope to frailty, where we spend the last 20 years of our lives dying. But the fact of the matter is, we actually can be healthy, vital, active, joyful. But people think that they have to go down this slippery slope and that there's nothing they can do about it.
But the fact of the matter is, there's so much we can do to pre-plan our future.
And what I love about her research is that it doesn't matter if you took the worst care of yourself up until this point. Your muscles and your brain are designed to grow and get stronger until the day you die. There are things that you can start doing now that will increase your mobility, your movement, your strength, your vitality, your energy.
It is never too late to fully experience the possibilities of your life. And I think that is such an exciting message that you don't have to slow down. I personally, I want to be dancing the day I die. I literally want to go, go, go, go, go, and boom, drop dead. That's exactly what I want to do. Now, is it going to happen? I don't know.
But I hold that vision for my life, and I hold that vision for you too. It's not a time to slow down. It's a time to get strong. and to stay strong and to be connected and to be social and to have more fun. And one of the things that's more important than ever is connection. If there were ever a decade to double down on your relationship with your family, your friends, your loved ones, it's now.
Relationships matter. And here's what I'm going to tell you. If there are things you need to apologize for, if there's somebody that you have not forgiven, if there is someone that you've never said I love you to, now's the time. It doesn't matter what's gone down in the past. There are always ways that you can build bridges to people and create a different future.
and being proactive about creating stronger connections with your loved ones, with friends, meeting new friends, heck, even finding love again. You know, one of the things that's very inspiring to me is that my mother-in-law has been a widower for 19 years. She has found the second love of her life at the age of 85. how cool is that? I mean, she's giggling like a teenager for crying out loud.
They're so cute together. I just love thinking about the fact that some of the best days of your life are ahead of you. And when you adopt this truth that your body is designed to move. Your body is designed to be strong. Your mind really wants to learn and be connected. And it can.
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