Courage To Be Disliked, The: How to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness

The Japanese phenomenon that teaches us the simple yet profound lessons required to liberate our real selves and find lasting happiness.

The Courage to be Disliked shows you how to unlock the power within yourself to become your best and truest self, change your future and find lasting happiness. Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of 19th century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, the authors explain how we are all free to determine our own future free of the shackles of past experiences, doubts and the expectations of others. It's a philosophy that's profoundly liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change, and to ignore the limitations that we and those around us can place on ourselves.

The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefited from its wisdom. Now that The Courage to be Disliked has been published for the first time in English, so can you.

Ichiro Kishimi lives in Kyoto. He writes, lectures and teaches in psychiatric clinics as a certified counsellor and consultant for the Japanese Society of Adlerian Psychology.

Fumitake Koga is a freelance writer.

The ideas proffered here will certainly make you think twice about the real cause of the emotional drama in your
life. A thought-provoking read.

― Mail on Sunday

Provides an enlightening and balanced argument that'll leave you much more aware of why you do the things you do. ― Emerald Street

The Courage To Be Disliked can easily be consumed in an entire day, but its insightful, humanistic ideas will linger in the minds of readers. It's a self-help book of the most unusual variety, but by empowering people to realise that they hold all the keys to unlocking genuine happiness, it's also one of the most worthwhile things you'll read all year. ― Culture Trip

This thoughtful book . . . is almost spookily relevant in this age of digital one upmanship and increasing anxiety. A real game-changer. ― Marie Claire

an absorbing recent addition to the self-help subgenre . . . it is primarily an accessible exploration of the work of the Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler -- Oliver Burkeman ― Guardian

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga is a thoughtful and challenging book about freedom, happiness, relationships, self-acceptance, and the courage to live according to one's own values. Based on the ideas of Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, the book presents psychology in the form of a conversation between a young man who is deeply dissatisfied with life and a philosopher who introduces him to Adlerian ideas. Through their repeated arguments and discussions, the book asks a powerful question: if we stop living for other people's approval, can we become genuinely free and happy? Its answer is yes, but achieving that freedom requires courage.

The young man begins the conversation convinced that the world is complicated, unfair, and full of reasons why people cannot be happy. He believes that the past shapes the present and that painful experiences can prevent a person from changing. The philosopher challenges these assumptions. He explains Adler's idea that people are not simply prisoners of their past. Adlerian psychology places greater emphasis on purpose than on causes. Instead of asking only, “What happened to make me this way?” it asks, “What purpose does my present behavior serve?” This idea gives individuals a greater sense of responsibility and possibility because it suggests that the meaning and direction of one's life are not completely fixed by earlier experiences.

One of the book's most provocative ideas is its treatment of trauma. The authors present Adler's position that past experiences do not automatically determine a person's present life. This does not mean that painful experiences are unimportant or that suffering should simply be ignored. Rather, the philosophical argument is that people can decide what meaning they give to their experiences and how they act in the present. The book uses this idea to encourage readers to stop seeing themselves as permanently defined by their history. Its emphasis is on the possibility of change and on taking responsibility for the choices available in the present.

The book then turns toward one of the biggest sources of unhappiness: our relationships with other people. The authors argue that many human problems are rooted in interpersonal relationships because people constantly compare themselves with others, seek approval, fear rejection, and worry about how they are being judged. A person may work hard not because the work is meaningful but because they want recognition. Someone may choose a career, appearance, lifestyle, or relationship mainly to satisfy expectations. When life is organized around receiving approval, personal freedom becomes very limited.

This leads to the important idea of the “separation of tasks.” According to the book, we should distinguish between what belongs to us and what belongs to other people. Our choices, efforts, attitudes, and actions are our responsibility. Other people's opinions, reactions, and judgments belong to them. For example, if someone makes an honest career choice and another person disapproves of it, making the choice is the first person's task, while the other person's reaction is that person's task. Confusing these responsibilities creates unnecessary anxiety because we begin trying to control things that were never ours to control.

This idea becomes especially important when the book discusses the desire for recognition. Human beings naturally want appreciation, but constantly needing praise can turn into a trap. If we need everyone to approve of us, we eventually begin living according to their expectations. We become afraid to make independent decisions because someone might criticize us. The philosopher argues that freedom means accepting that not everyone will like us. This is where the title of the book becomes meaningful. Having the “courage to be disliked” does not mean deliberately behaving badly or becoming insensitive to others. It means being willing to accept disapproval when living honestly requires it.

The book also challenges the idea that life is a competition. When people constantly compare themselves with others, other people's success can begin to feel like their own failure. Someone else's intelligence, wealth, beauty, career achievement, or social popularity becomes a measure against which they judge themselves. Adlerian psychology offers a different approach. Instead of seeing other people as rivals, we can see them as fellow human beings or comrades. The goal is not to become superior to everyone else but to move forward in our own lives. Healthy growth comes from comparing ourselves with our own possibilities rather than constantly measuring ourselves against other people.

Another central idea is the difference between inferiority and an inferiority complex. Feeling that we are not yet as capable as we would like to be is not necessarily harmful. Such a feeling can motivate improvement. The problem begins when we turn a temporary weakness into a permanent explanation for why we cannot act. A person may say, for example, that because they are not talented enough, attractive enough, educated enough, or confident enough, they should not even try. The book encourages readers to stop using perceived shortcomings as excuses for avoiding action.

The authors also place great importance on contribution. Happiness, in their view, is not achieved simply by receiving praise or becoming successful. A deeper sense of happiness comes from feeling that we have value and that we contribute to the lives of others. This does not necessarily mean performing extraordinary acts. Helping someone, doing useful work, supporting a family, cooperating with colleagues, or simply being a responsible member of a community can create a feeling of belonging. When people stop viewing themselves as isolated competitors and begin seeing themselves as contributors, their relationship with life can change.

The book also argues that happiness is closely connected with self-acceptance. Self-acceptance does not mean believing that everything about ourselves is perfect. It means recognizing ourselves honestly while understanding that we can still grow. The person we are today does not have to be the person we remain tomorrow. This creates a healthier form of confidence because it is not dependent on being superior to others.

In the final part of the dialogue, the philosopher explains that life should not be treated only as a race toward some distant destination. Much of life is lived in the present moment. If a person becomes obsessed with reaching a future point at which they will finally be successful, respected, or happy, they may overlook the actual life happening now. The authors encourage readers to focus on how they live each moment rather than waiting for a perfect future. This does not mean abandoning goals; it means recognizing that the process of living has value in itself.

Overall, The Courage to Be Disliked is a book about taking ownership of one's life. Its message is not that other people do not matter, but that their opinions should not control every important decision we make. It asks readers to release the need for universal approval, stop treating life as a competition, separate their responsibilities from those of others, accept themselves honestly, and find meaning through contribution and connection. The book's ideas can sometimes feel deliberately provocative, especially its strong statements about the past and trauma, but that is part of its purpose: it wants readers to question beliefs that may have quietly limited them.

The deepest lesson of the book is that freedom is not the absence of criticism or rejection. Freedom is the ability to live meaningfully even when some people may disagree with us. Real happiness, according to Kishimi and Koga's Adlerian perspective, comes when we stop building our lives around other people's approval and begin choosing our own direction. The courage to be disliked is therefore really the courage to be ourselves—to accept responsibility for our choices, treat others as equals, contribute to the community, and live fully in the present.