The title of this article comes from a bestselling book by Japanese authors Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, but the concept is pure Adler. Freedom, in the Adlerian sense, is not the absence of constraints. It is the courage to live according to your own values even when doing so brings disapproval, criticism, or rejection from others. Most people are not free. They are trapped in a web of concerns about what others think, constantly adjusting their behavior to avoid disapproval or gain acceptance. This is not malicious. It is a survival strategy learned in childhood. But it is also a prison. And the key to escaping the prison is developing what Adler called the courage to be disliked.
This does not mean being deliberately offensive or seeking conflict. It means accepting that you cannot control other people’s opinions, that trying to please everyone is impossible, and that living authentically will inevitably result in some people disliking you. This is not a problem to be solved. It is a fact to be accepted. The person who has the courage to be disliked understands this and chooses to act according to their own judgment rather than constantly seeking external validation. This is Adlerian freedom, and it is both liberating and terrifying.
The need for approval is learned early. Children are completely dependent on adults for survival, and they quickly learn that certain behaviors produce approval and therefore safety, while others produce disapproval and therefore threat. The child who is praised for being obedient learns that conformity equals love. The child who is criticized for being different learns that individuality equals rejection. These associations become deeply embedded in the lifestyle, and by adulthood, they operate automatically. You seek approval not because you consciously decided it is valuable but because your nervous system learned in childhood that approval equals survival.
Adler called this living for others’ approval, and he saw it as one of the primary sources of neurosis. When your sense of worth depends on what others think, you are never in control of your own well-being. Other people’s opinions are unpredictable, inconsistent, and often contradictory. What pleases one person offends another. What impresses your boss disappoints your partner. What satisfies your parents alienates your peers. Trying to please everyone simultaneously is impossible, which means you are constantly failing by your own standards. This produces chronic anxiety, resentment, and exhaustion.
Moreover, living for others’ approval prevents authenticity. You cannot be yourself because yourself might not be approved of. You have to perform, to manage impressions, to hide anything that might provoke criticism. This is not just exhausting. It is alienating. You lose touch with your own values, your own desires, your own sense of what matters. You become a collection of strategies for gaining approval rather than a coherent person. And even when you succeed at gaining approval, it does not satisfy because it is approval for the performance, not for who you actually are.
Adler also observed that the need for approval creates vulnerability to manipulation. If your worth depends on external validation, other people can control you by withholding or granting that validation. The boss who knows you need their approval can extract extra work for no additional compensation. The partner who knows you fear rejection can make unreasonable demands. The parent who knows you seek their validation can maintain control long into your adulthood. You are not free because your behavior is determined by other people’s expectations rather than your own values.
The trap is reinforced by what Adler called the tasks of life. There are three fundamental tasks everyone must navigate: work, contributing productively to society, friendship, building meaningful peer relationships, and love, developing intimate partnerships. Each of these tasks involves other people, which means each involves the risk of disapproval. The person who lacks the courage to be disliked will avoid these tasks or approach them defensively. They will choose safe careers over meaningful ones, superficial friendships over deep ones, and avoid intimacy entirely to prevent the vulnerability that comes with being truly known.
This avoidance produces what Adler called the life-lie, a self-deceptive story you tell yourself to justify not engaging with the tasks of life. The person who says ‘I would pursue my passion, but I have responsibilities’ is often using responsibilities as an excuse to avoid the risk of failure. The person who says ‘I would be in a relationship, but I have not met the right person’ is often using standards as an excuse to avoid the risk of rejection. The person who says ‘I would make friends, but people are shallow’ is often using cynicism as an excuse to avoid the risk of vulnerability. The life-lie protects you from the anxiety of engaging with life, but it also prevents you from living.
The first step toward freedom is recognizing that you cannot control other people’s opinions. This sounds obvious, but most people behave as if they can. They believe that if they are good enough, smart enough, attractive enough, or accomplished enough, everyone will approve of them. But this is false. Even the most universally admired people have detractors. Even the most accomplished people face criticism. No amount of achievement or conformity will guarantee approval because other people’s opinions are determined by their own psychology, not by your objective qualities.
Once you accept that approval is uncontrollable, the logical next step is to stop making it the basis of your decisions. Adler would say: you are responsible for your own behavior, but you are not responsible for how others interpret or react to that behavior. If you act according to your values and someone disapproves, that is their issue, not yours. This does not mean ignoring feedback or being indifferent to harm you cause. It means distinguishing between legitimate concerns, I hurt someone and should make amends, and illegitimate concerns, someone disapproves of me for not conforming to their expectations.
The second step is separation of tasks. This is one of Adler’s most practical concepts. Every situation involves multiple people, and each person has their own tasks, things they are responsible for. Your task is to decide what you believe and how you want to act. Other people’s task is to decide how they respond. Trying to control their response is crossing the boundary. If you choose to pursue a career your parents disapprove of, your task is to make that choice and live with the consequences. Your parents’ task is to decide how they feel about it. You cannot make them approve, and trying to do so is both futile and disrespectful of their autonomy.
Separation of tasks is liberating because it clarifies what is actually within your control. You cannot control whether people like you, but you can control whether you act according to your values. You cannot control whether you succeed, but you can control whether you try. You cannot control how others interpret your intentions, but you can control whether your intentions are genuine. This shift from trying to control outcomes to focusing on what you can actually control reduces anxiety and increases agency.
The third step is accepting that some people will dislike you, and this is not a catastrophe. Adler believed that the fear of being disliked is often more painful than actually being disliked. When you are rejected, the reality is usually manageable. The person moves on, and so do you. But the anticipation of rejection can be paralyzing because your imagination exaggerates the consequences. You imagine that being disliked means total isolation, permanent damage to your reputation, unbearable shame. In reality, most disapproval is temporary and localized. The person who dislikes you goes on with their life. You go on with yours.
The fourth step is building self-validation. If you have been living for others’ approval, you have probably not developed the capacity to validate yourself. You do not know what you value because you have spent your life trying to figure out what others value. Developing self-validation requires asking: what do I actually care about? What kind of person do I want to be? What matters to me independent of whether it impresses others? These questions are difficult because they require introspection rather than external reference. But answering them is essential for freedom.
The fifth step is practicing courage in small ways. You do not develop the courage to be disliked by making one grand gesture. You develop it through repeated small acts of authenticity that risk disapproval. You state an unpopular opinion in a conversation. You decline an invitation without providing an elaborate excuse. You pursue a hobby that others might find weird. You set a boundary with someone who expects compliance. Each of these acts is a small assertion of autonomy, and each one builds the muscle of courage. Over time, the fear of disapproval weakens because you have evidence that being disliked is survivable.
Adler also emphasized that freedom requires social interest. This might seem contradictory. If you have the courage to be disliked, why does it matter whether you care about others? The answer is that caring about others prevents freedom from collapsing into narcissism. The person who has the courage to be disliked but lacks social interest becomes selfish, indifferent to the harm they cause, concerned only with their own autonomy. This is not freedom. It is sociopathy. Genuine freedom means acting according to your values while also considering how your actions affect others. You do not need approval, but you do care about contribution.
Finally, Adler believed that the courage to be disliked is essential for meaningful relationships. Paradoxically, the person who desperately needs approval cannot form deep connections because they cannot be authentic. They are too busy managing impressions to reveal who they actually are. But the person who has the courage to be disliked can risk vulnerability. They can say what they actually think, express what they actually feel, and show who they actually are. This creates the possibility of genuine connection because the other person is relating to the real you, not the performed version. And even if some people reject the real you, the people who accept you are accepting something real, which makes the connection meaningful.