How to Build a Life Around Your Values (Not Your Anxiety)

If anxiety were in charge of your life, it would have one clear goal: keep you safe at all costs.

Don’t say the wrong thing. Don’t take risks. Don’t feel uncomfortable. Don’t fail. Don’t get hurt. While anxiety means well, when it becomes the decision-maker, life often gets smaller. Opportunities shrink. Relationships feel constrained. Joy gets postponed until “someday, when I feel better.” When anxiety runs your life, decisions sound like:

• “I’ll do that once I’m less anxious.”

• “I can’t handle those feelings.”

• “What if something goes wrong?”

Over time, this leads to avoidance, which feels relieving in the short term but tends to strengthen anxiety in the long term.

This is where ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)  comes onto the scene. The ACT perspective posits that anxiety isn’t the problem. It’s just the “Bossy Manager.” Anxiety is a normal human experience. It’s your nervous system trying to protect you from potential danger. Sometimes that means even when there isn't any real danger around just in case. ACT helps you step out of this cycle. Not by arguing with anxiety, but by changing your relationship with it. ACT does not ask “How do I get rid of anxiety?” but rather “How do I build a meaningful life, even when anxiety shows up?”

In ACT, values are the qualities of life that matter deeply to you. They aren’t goals you check off, they’re directions that guide you.

For example: 

• Being a caring parent

• Living with honesty

• Showing up with courage

• Building meaningful connection

• Contributing to something larger than yourself

One of the biggest myths about mental health is that you need to feel better before you live better. ACT flips that idea because waiting for anxiety to disappear before taking action often means waiting indefinitely. Values-based action happens with discomfort, not after it’s gone.

You can:

• Speak up while your heart is racing

• Set boundaries with guilt present

• Try something new alongside fear

To start building a values-based life, you don’t need a dramatic life overhaul. Small, consistent shifts matter more than big declarations. That’s because emotional progress isn’t measured by how calm you feel, but by how aligned your actions are with what matters to you. The DBT skills workbook has a skill in line with this concept and they break it down into these following steps to help us live more in line with our values. 

Step 1: Get curious about what values matter to you

Ask yourself: “What kind of person do I want to be for myself, in my relationships, work, or family?”

Step 2: Identify one of those values to work on now. It would likely be one that you would like to feel more aligned with. 

Step 3: Identify a few goals related to this value. You can ask yourself, what would it look like if I were already ____? 

Step 4: Choose one of those goals to work on now

Step 5: Identify small action steps toward your goal.

Step 6: Take one action step! 

Ultimately ACT doesn’t try to eliminate difficult emotions. It helps you carry them more lightly while building a life that feels meaningful and true to you.  The goal isn’t “feeling better.”  The goal is living better - feeling better often follows!