Freedom Guide
9 Powerful Adlerian Principles to Overcome Your Fears and Become Relentless
On freeing yourself from mediocrity
Fear has a way of taming our aspirations and putting a limit on our potential.
Twentieth-century psychologist Alfred Adler (and one of the three giants in the field along with Freud and Jung) founded the school of individual psychology.
It’s a psychology described as ‘psychology of use’ and ‘psychology of courage’ because of its focus on overcoming fears and unhappy living.
It’s practical and much of it is aligned with ancient Greek philosophy, including Socratism and Stoicism.
The following are a set of timeless Adlerian principles for freeing ourselves from our past, living more freely, and overcoming our fears.
1. Focus on present goals, not past causes.
The problem with our beliefs
Adler says our suffering comes from having a deterministic mindset to explain things and make sense of our reality.
It’s a cause-effect paradigm — the belief that we can’t change because of our past.
It’s the paradigm that says our present and future have already been determined and that a person’s wounds or traumas are the cause of a person’s unhappiness.
Until we shift our paradigm, we’ll continue to be chained to our past.
Adler suggests an alternative paradigm (this ultimately caused him to part ways with Freud).
Paradigm of free will and present goals
Adler puts emphasis on present goals.
In Adlerian psychology, it’s not the wound or trauma that causes us unhappiness, but the meaning we give them, which is self-determining. It’s the interpretation we give to the experience, not the experience that matters.
So, not only do we have the power to choose the meaning behind what happens to us, but we can use that new meaning as an opportunity for success.
2. Focus on what you can do with what you’re given, not what you’re born with.
Adler says we’re unhappy because we’re constantly comparing ourselves to other people.
When we do that, we focus on what we don’t have.
To this Adler says,
“The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.”
The cards we were dealt in life don’t matter as much as what we do with them going forward.
Renowned grit psychologist Angela Duckworth describes people who are talented and rarely fail as ‘fragile perfects’ — they have low resilience muscles because they rarely fail. And when they do fail, they have a difficult time bouncing back.
People who keep going despite repeated setbacks and disadvantages, on the other hand, are the individuals who tend to be the most successful.
Be proud of your cards and use them to push forward.
3. Have the courage to choose your own personality.
This goes back to the first principle of free will.
Because of our free will, we have the power to create our own lifestyle or personality. When we change our personality, both our way of interacting with the world and our behaviors change with it.
So, if we want to be more sociable, more courageous, more compassionate, more disciplined, we can do so as long as we decide and take action.
4. Overcome the fear of being disliked by others.
Being disliked is evidence we’re exercising our freedom to live according to our own standards.
When we try to please others, we’re robbing ourselves of happiness and freedom because we’re trying to meet other peoples’ standards of what they believe is the right path. Trying to be liked all the time is living according to other peoples’ judgment.
That’s no way to live.
5. Stop comparing yourself to other people.
When we focus on our shortcomings, we’re unconsciously comparing ourselves with others.
We can stop focusing on our shortcomings by accepting ourselves as we are. Then have the courage to move forward regardless of the outcome.
6. Don’t wait for other people or situations to change.
Be proactive.
Focus on getting better and being the best you can be, not waiting for things to happen.
7. Stop seeking recognition from others.
Constantly seeking it is living according to other peoples’ standards.
If you get it, you’re happy and confident. If you don’t get it, you’re disappointed and don’t take action. Over time, you take action only if you’re rewarded. It’s this over-emphasis on the reward-punishment system that Adler warns against.
Take action because it’s what you must do, not for praise or recognition.
8. Know how to differentiate between ‘tasks,’ then focus on your own tasks.
Knowing which tasks to take in life provides clarity and direction.
Focusing on our own tasks is about doing things we can control and not trying to change things that are not completely up to us. There are one’s own tasks and then other people’s tasks. Adler suggests asking the following question:
Who will ultimately receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made?
If you will receive it, it’s your task. If not, it’s someone else’s task.
Problems happen when we don’t know which tasks or actions are ours to do and which belong to someone else’s.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
You can’t make people do things or think a certain way, you can only help them see it.
Examples:
- You have your partner, and you have expectations and wishes for your partner. But your task isn’t to make sure he/she fills those expectations. Your task is to be the best partner you can be. Your partner’s task is for him/her to act in accordance with what he/she believes.
- Peoples’ judgment of you: that’s their task, not yours. Your task is to living according to your own standards. Their task is to judge according to their beliefs.
Worry and suffering stem from this lack of task separation, says Adler.
Stoic doctrine of action and will
Task separation is none other than understanding what’s up to us and what’s not and then practicing the will to accept the things we can’t change.
Focusing on good moral actions, which is up to us, and being indifferent to what we can’t change and having the will to accept it.
9. Resist your impulsive desires
Not wanting to be disliked can be difficult.
But Adler insists that we have to resist this natural impulse of not wanting to be disliked. Real freedom comes from being disliked because it’s confirmation that we’re living according to our own desires, not someone else’s.
It’s having courage to move forward despite what other people may think.
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