At Quantum ADR, we seek to empower autonomy, while also recognizing the entangled relationships that shape our lives. Finding the balance between independence and connection can feel challenging at first, but there are many strategies that will help you find your sweet spot.

This article reviews five important aspects of leading a fulfilling life characterized by clarity, confidence, and consideration for the best interest of each of our relationships. It provides many actionable strategies that can be implemented into your routine as soon as today. Why wait? 

Identify Goals and Values

We make hundreds if not thousands of decisions each and every day. Some are mundane, like what to eat for breakfast, which route to take home, and which podcast episode to listen to on a walk. Others can be hugely significant, including how we take care of ourselves and interact in important relationships. Maintaining awareness of what’s personally important to you in terms of your goals and values is the most important guidance you’ll have to inform your decision-making throughout your life. Goals can be short-term or long-term and values can be broad or specific. They often change over time, so be sure to check-in periodically. 

Stressed out trying to decide if you really need to attend that friend’s birthday party? Does it make sense to raise a minor grievance with your kids’ father? These seemingly minor choices can feel overwhelming at times when we’re disconnected from our goals and values. That changes when we know what we want from life and what parameters we’ll set to keep us in line while getting there. You can think of goals as the bowling pins at the end of the alley and values as the bumper rails along it. Goals are what you strive towards; values are the boundaries you set for yourself along the way. 

Using these examples, if your goals are to widen your social network and have more time for play and/or your values are to be a loyal and consistent friend, it’s best to attend the party. If your goal is to raise happy and secure children and your values are patience and forgiveness, you’re better off letting it slide that your kids’ dad was 30 minutes late picking them up today. Of course, goals and values are entirely subjective. What makes sense for one person, will not necessarily make sense for another. 

What if your goals and values are aligned in one direction, but you’re feeling anxious about actually doing it? A good trick from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is the “get off your buts” strategy. Anytime you notice yourself putting a “but” in a sentence that stems from unfounded anxiety - “I want to go to the party, but I’m anxious about meeting new people” - try changing that “but” to an “and” - “I want to go to the party, and I’m anxious about meeting new people.” If something is important, that is, aligned with your goals and values, it’s worth bringing your anxiety with you as you go. You’ll want to look back on your life and feel proud of the choices you made. As you are increasingly fulfilled and your decisions reflect who you are as a person, you will flourish, and so will your relationships.

Establish Boundaries

Boundaries are a hot topic that you’ve likely come across many times. While it’s great that they get a lot of attention, it’s important that they’re properly understood. Boundaries are the lines we draw for ourselves. They are not designed to tell other people what to do. So step one is recognizing that boundaries indicate what we are and are not comfortable with and where we’ll draw the line in certain situations and relationships. They are also enforced by you because you are the one who will change your behavior accordingly. We never get to control other people; only how we respond to them. 

Boundaries are not even always related to other people. You might construct boundaries for yourself around time management, financial budgets, or engagement with media, for example. The kinds of boundaries you enact are directly related to your goals and values. They should meaningfully correspond to what is most important to you in life. Otherwise, what’s the point? 

Once you’ve established your boundaries, the next step is to decide how you’ll respond when they’re violated. You do not need to do this proactively, but you certainly can. Let’s look at an example. Perhaps one of your boundaries is maintaining personal privacy with the other parent of your children. When they continue to ask you personal questions, how will you respond? You might say, “I’ve decided that I will no longer share aspects of my dating life.” Of course, you’ll need to be sure that you’re not inviting those questions by asking similar ones! 

Enhance Self-Regulation

The next piece of the entangled autonomy puzzle is to stay in a zone of regulation where you can remain calm and mindful of what you want to say and how you want to act. When we’re emotionally heightened, we tend to lose control, leading to things we regret later. In order to be autonomously independent, while maintaining connection in important relationships, we need to be able to consciously choose how we respond to other people. 

One helpful way of conceptualizing emotional regulation zones is using the three-color system of traffic lights. When you’re in the green zone, you’re regulated and ready to take on challenges. The yellow zone is a warning sign that you’re becoming dysregulated. It’s time for checking in to see what’s contributing and engaging in something calming and centering to get you back on track. Ideally, you want to avoid getting to the red zone, but it’s going to happen sometimes. The quicker you notice it, the faster you can get yourself out of it. 

There are many ways to prevent shifting to yellow and red zones, and to help move out of them once you get there. One strategy that can be helpful for quickly de-escalating (rather than swirling around in your mind of anxious thoughts about what’s to come) is called 5-4-3-2-1. This is often referred to as a grounding technique because it helps us ground ourselves in the present moment. You look for five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and then one deep breath (traditionally, it’s one thing you can taste, but that can be hard, so you might prefer the deep breath). 

Sometimes we’re dysregulated and we don’t know why. An effective strategy for that is watching your thoughts like a ticker-tape. Just reading them, observing them, but not trying to judge or alter them. This mindful approach can help us pinpoint what’s going on and facilitates accurately labeling our emotions, which is itself a helpful strategy for defusing from our thoughts and feelings. You are not your sadness, anger, or worries - you are simply feeling that right now. If all else fails, a timeout is warranted. It’s always fair to tell someone that you need a break to recollect yourself; just let them know when you will be ready to discuss it further. A simple “I’m feeling dysregulated and would like to revisit this conversation in an hour” goes a long way.  

Embrace Gratitude and Compassion

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of frustrations, disappointments, and concerns. Shifting to a place of gratitude and compassion can ease the challenges of those difficult emotions and offer us a different path through life. This does not need to be a massive endeavor. 

Starting the day by making an intention to be compassionate, noting small wins as they happen, and ending the day by noting what you’re grateful for (bonus points for writing it down) can have a major impact despite taking very little time. Keep in mind that the goal is not to make the other emotions go away. Humans are complex and dualities exist - you can at once feel sadness and gratitude, or anger and compassion. 

When it comes to compassion, we need to offer it to ourselves and other people. You may find one of those harder than the other. Giving everyone, including yourself, the benefit of the doubt can be immensely helpful for maintaining that compassionate orientation. Everyone is trying their best, and no one is perfect. Furthermore, your best on one day will look different than you best on another. Meeting yourself and others with compassion and understanding will help everyone be their best selves. 

Along with giving the benefit of the doubt, keep in mind that how someone else acts does not necessarily mean what it would mean if you had done it. You are not the yardstick for objectively evaluating everyone else. It’s important to remember that everyone is acting from their own perspective and worldview. Their behaviors are a reflection of them, not you. 

Sometimes, we have a tendency to attach to our initial impressions and judgments. We act as though everything we think or feel is an accurate reflection of reality and thus we buy into them wholeheartedly. We need to check in to ensure that we are not unfairly judging and/or believing that things are the way we believe or feel them to be. 

Noticing your thoughts can help provide the distance you need to more objectively look at them. “I’m noticing the thought that they would have texted back already if they cared about me.” Can you choose to make space for a different interpretation? Perhaps that they’re preoccupied, respond to texts less quickly than you do, or their phone is stuffed between the couch cushions.

Take Care of Yourself

You’ve likely heard the saying that you can’t pour from an empty cup. Self-care fills the cup so you have resources available to share and support others. In our modern world of busyness and limited bandwidth, self-care can feel like a chore or even an impossibility. Working in small bits here and there will go further than trying to squeeze in a week-long retreat when you’re reaching your breaking point. 

Self-care is highly individualized - what works for one person may feel like torture to someone else. It also does not need to be completed alone unless that’s what works best for you. Taking a walk with friends, painting with your kids, or joining a book club may fill your so-called cup. It might also be taking a hot bath, going to spin class, or cuddling with your dog. You’ll know it’s a good approach for you if you feel rejuvenated afterwards. 

Another important aspect of self-care is checking in with your physical body. We all hold stress in different places. Maybe you tense your legs or wear your shoulders like earrings when you’re stressed? It’s good practice to consciously relax those areas whenever you notice tension. But what if you don’t notice? You’re in good company because many of us have trouble with that part! A body scan is the perfect solution. You literally scan your body from head to toe identifying areas of tension and then releasing them as you go. Try it - you might be surprised with what you find!

Ultimately, feeling empowered in our autonomy and independence while also feeling connected to others requires that we first take care of ourselves. By identifying your goals and values, you’ll take the first step to really knowing what you want from your life and what decisions are aligned with it. Establishing clear boundaries, engaging in effective emotional self-regulation, embracing a gratitude and compassion orientation, and enhancing your self-care routine will all support you in becoming the best version of yourself. From there, you’ll notice that you feel more secure in proceeding through life on your own terms, while also feeling safely engaged with the people who matter. Looking back on your life and knowing you did the best you could is a gift only you can offer yourself - don’t miss out!