The Strength to Be Yourself: Insights from The Courage to Be Disliked

I love to learn. When I heard about this book, I was sold: The Courage to Be Disliked. What an intriguing title! Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga’s thought-provoking book is based on Adlerian psychology, something I’d not previously come across. The book offers profound insights into how we can reclaim our happiness and live authentically—two things I’m truly passionate about. I was keen to find out more!

If you decide to listen or read the book, it is based on a conversation between a philosopher and his student. The format is easy to digest and the student often gets in there with your questions before you do which is great.

One of the core ideas of the book is that happiness is a choice. It challenged the belief that our past experiences define us and instead argues that we have the power to shape our future through self-responsibility. This felt refreshing and resonated with how I encourage my coachees to focus on what they can control and leverage their natural strengths to overcome obstacles. Often in our coaching sessions, we talk about moving from a Pathway of limitation to a Pathway of possibility a concept Strengthscope shares in the diagram below. By shifting the focus away from limitations and towards opportunities trust, hope and engagement naturally follow.

Adler’s concept of “separation of tasks” is another core concept in the book. The concept encourages us to focus only on what is within our control and let go of concerns that belong to others, as a result, to stop seeking excessive validation from others. I often challenge coachees to question assumptions and thoughts on other’s opinions, accepting that we are all different and bringing different strengths in my opinion means that welcoming criticism or differing opinions is healthy and when dealt with well can be reframed to polishing an idea or thought.

The book highlights the importance of accepting that not everyone will approve of you, and that’s okay, that authenticity requires courage. When I was listening it made me consider the change of mindset we face when introducing the concept of strengths, just like acceptance that not everyone will approve of you comes the acceptance that no one can be strong in everything. We all have unique strengths and learning about our own builds confidence in our unique talents and contributions, science shows using those strengths more often increases confidence removing some of the need for universal approval.

Another powerful message from The Courage to Be Disliked is the importance of living in the moment. I loved the point about “Dancing in the moment” it really highlighted the point it’s about celebrating progress, not perfection then you’ll always be achieving something.

Another important theme in Adlerian psychology is the importance of contributing to the well-being of others, this was emphasised through community feeling. The North Star was referenced as making a contribution to others. Kishimi talked about how for a person to have self-worth they need to feel they are of use to someone coming from good interpersonal relationships. This self-worth would then lead to courage. This caused me to reflect on the teams I work with, the ones that are thriving are taking time to build connections based on mutual respect, support and shared purpose and you could see the results of this within the team, individuals having self-worth and courage to move forward and be proactive around change.

There were definitely insights that I took away, much like the lessons from The Courage to Be Disliked, our approach in Personal Strengths Coaching empowers clients to:

• Take responsibility for their growth and success.
• Build stronger, healthier relationships by respecting boundaries.
• Embrace their unique strengths with confidence.

The Courage to Be Disliked reminded me that true freedom comes from letting go of the need to be liked by everyone and focusing instead on living a life that feels meaningful and true to who we are. Accepting nobody is naturally strong at everything so harnessing what we bring to the organisation, through our interpersonal relationships resulting in increased self-worth and courage.

Are you ready to embrace your strengths and step into your authentic self? If so click CONTACT above to drop us an email and find out more about how we can support you!