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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mel Robbins
Read between
October 30 - November 18, 2025
even just being honest about the extent to which you’re struggling. . . . Everything feels impossible. Every morning when I woke up, the anxiety was coursing through my veins, and I thought, Is this really what it’s going to look like for the rest of my life?
But you want to know the funny thing about being stuck? I knew exactly what I needed to do: get up, tackle the dreaded pile of bills, get the kids ready for school, make myself go on walks, reach out to my friends for support, make a budget, find a job. And yet, I couldn’t seem to do any of it.
Thinking about your problems will never solve them. Waiting around to feel like doing something means you’ll never do it. It taught me that no one is coming to save you. You must save yourself from yourself. You have to force yourself to make little moves forward, all day, every day, especially when you don’t feel like it.
The problem with waiting is no one is coming. The only permission you need is your own.
Learning how to push yourself to take action when you are afraid or full of self-doubt or overwhelmed with excuses is a life skill you can learn. Once you master it, you’ll understand that you can achieve anything through small, consistent moves forward.
You’ll never feel ready to change your life. One day, you just get tired of your own excuses and force yourself to do it.
The problem isn’t you. The problem is the power you unknowingly give to other people. We all do it, often without realizing it. You make the mistake of thinking that if you say the right thing, everyone will be satisfied. If you bend over backward, maybe your partner won’t be disappointed. If you’re friendly enough, maybe your co-workers will like you more. If you keep the peace, maybe your family will stop judging your choices.
Time was passing, and I wished it would slow down. That’s the cruel fact about time. It’s going to keep passing, whether you slow down or not. The time that you have with the people that you love is like a melting ice cube.
if they’re not showing up how you need them to show up, do not try to force them to change. Let Them be themselves because they are revealing who they are to you. Just Let Them and then you get to choose what you do next.
No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to control or change another person. The only person you are in control of is you. Your thoughts, your actions, your feelings.
You find out that you weren’t included in something, and all you want is some kind of reassurance that there wasn’t something you had done wrong.
I’m a fixer by nature. I’ve spent most of my life believing that if I didn’t step in, if I didn’t manage the situation, things would fall apart. I had to be the one who kept everything together—relationships, work, friendships, even the emotions of the people I love. And when something didn’t go the way I expected, it felt like a reflection on me. If someone was upset, if something didn’t work out, if I wasn’t included, I automatically thought I had to fix it, change it, control it.
I’ve felt that fear a lot in my life. Fear that if I didn’t make things happen, I’d be forgotten. Fear that I wouldn’t be liked or accepted. Fear that without me at the helm, things would unravel.
Trying to control people and situations doesn’t calm your fears. It amplifies them. Any psychologist will tell you, the more you try to control something you can’t, the more anxious and stressed out you become.
The more you allow people to live their lives, the better your life will get. The more control you give up, the more you gain.
No one owes me an invite. No one owes me a call. Yes, these things feel good, and yes, you deserve friends who reach out. But whose responsibility is it to create those friendships?
Let Me stop expecting other people to always include me. Let Me take responsibility for what I want in life. Let Me figure out the deeper issue that I need to look at. Let Me be more proactive about reaching out to people. Let Me invite people to do something this weekend. Let Me throw a party for once. Let Me develop better boundaries with work so I have time for friendship. Let Me prioritize my social life, because clearly it matters to me, and it is my responsibility to create one.
I am acknowledging that my kids are capable and stronger than I think. The Let Me part reminds me that my job is in supporting, listening, and guiding, not controlling. That said, I am still the parent, so there is a balance between trusting, letting them, and providing the support they need and stepping in when necessary.
I blamed someone else for the fact that I was alone sitting on my couch. Or not making the money I wanted to make. Or how often I said yes due to guilt. Or the decisions I made because I didn’t want to disappoint someone else. Or how often I used the excuse of being too tired to make my health or fun a priority. When you’re an adult, your life, happiness, health, healing, social life, friendships, boundaries, needs, and success are all your responsibility. If you’ve been secretly hoping someone else would come and rescue you, fix your problems, pay your bills, create a social life, heal your
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not every conversation needs your participation—and
your stress at work isn’t changing, so you need to change your approach to dealing with it.
You are never stuck. That’s a lie you tell yourself. You can leave a job, a relationship, a living situation, a date, an interview, or a conversation anytime you want to.
While I don’t want to have to pick up after other people, I like being the kind of person who cares about leaving public spaces in good shape for everyone to enjoy them. I love knowing that I leave places better than I found them. And I love acting like a leader, even when it’s not my job to do so.
Is this going to bother me in an hour? Is this going to bother me in a week? Or is this something that just bothers me right now? If I’m still thinking about it an hour from now, I should do something. If it’s going to matter in a week or a year, then I definitely need to do something.
don’t be the person who bends over backward to make everyone happy. I used to be that person. It left me depleted and feeling like nothing I could do was ever good enough.
All it takes is one person to change the way they show up in a family, and the entire system can change for the better. And that person is you.
Let your parents be less than what you deserve. Let your family life be something that isn’t a fairy tale. They are doing the best they can with the resources and life experiences they have. Now you get to choose what happens moving forward.
You will always come last if you let other people’s emotional immaturity have power over you.
their inability to process normal human emotions like sadness, insecurity, disappointment, anger, fear, and rejection is not your fault. And it’s also not your problem to solve.
It is not your responsibility to manage their emotions or try to fix them. Your responsibility is to protect yourself from their emotional spiral and to see it for what it is: A person who has no idea how to handle or express their emotions in a healthy way.
The hand you’ve been dealt may not feel fair. But it’s still yours. And what you choose to do with it? That’s where your power is. Winning the game of life requires you to focus on the cards you have and choosing what to do with them.
You don’t have to be special. You just have to get up every day, put one foot in front of the other, and work hard to do a little better, and be a little better than you were yesterday.
When you stop expecting to have everyone be your best friend, or to be invited to everything, or be included in everything, or that you will click with everyone, friendship gets a lot easier.
There are certain people who are meant to be in your life for a season. There are people that are meant to be in your life for a specific reason. And there will be people who will be with you for a lifetime.
When somebody “loses touch,” it doesn’t mean you’ve lost a friend. I hate the fact that a lot of people think that just because someone is distant, they are now your enemy. Let Them be distant. Just because they are not in front of your face doesn’t mean you’re against them. Make it a habit to just cheer for people and wish them the best.
Stop gripping so tightly when things start to shift.
Everyone thinks they are the exception to bad outcomes happening to them.
Acceptance of another person, as they are, is the foundation of a healthy and loving relationship. When someone feels that you accept them as they are, they feel safe with you.
No one wants to feel pressured by their friends, family, or loved ones. What you want is unconditional love, acceptance, kindness, and compassion. You don’t want to be controlled; you want to feel deeply accepted for who you are and where you are in your life.
So you’re going to need to say Let Them a lot as you just focus on your own behavior and your attitude about it. It’s important to do this without the expectation that they will change. The reason why you have to give up your expectations is that if you do this expecting them to change, you’ll start to resent them when they don’t.
When people are struggling, they have a lot of shame and are often in denial about it. They already feel like a burden and often tell themselves they are letting everyone down. Which is why people often don’t ask for help or open up about what is going on.
People only heal when they are ready. And if they haven’t, it’s because they aren’t ready. When someone you love is going through an internal struggle, they will not get better for you, their kids, or their family. They have to want to get better for themselves. You may not understand it. You may think you would act differently if you were in the same situation. None of that matters. All of your opinions are judgment. And your judgment of the other person and what you think they should do is part of the problem, because it translates to pressure.
When you are depressed, staying in bed feels easier. When you are grieving, it’s easy to think you’ll never get through this.
When you are struggling, you don’t know what you want or what you need.
When you’re struggling, you don’t want to burden anyone else, because you already feel like a burden.
You are supposed to be yourself and trust that if you show up as your full self, the person that is looking to be with someone as awesome as you can actually find you.
You weren’t put on the earth to be somebody’s wife or husband. You are here to fulfill your dreams, share your story, and create a big, beautiful, amazing life.
Stop chasing the potential of who someone might be. Stop pouring your time and energy into people who do not give it back to you. Stop explaining away their disrespectful behavior. Stop giving your love to people who do not love you back. Stop making excuses for people who are clearly not interested in you. Stop chasing people who are not choosing to love you back. Stop playing the game.
If somebody is sending you mixed signals, it means they are NOT interested.
This is the hard part: Sometimes the people you choose aren’t going to choose you back. It will suck. You will feel demoralized. And you’ll be okay.
