The Psychology of Personal Growth and Better Relationships

3How to Develop Courage

Four Points in Developing Courage

In his writings, Adler frequently used the term courage. Courage means “the strength to overcome difficulties.” In the story, Adler acts as a mentor to Yukari, encouraging her in each aspect of her life. Starting with interpersonal relationships, even the timid can develop courage. But how? Four steps can get you started on your way:

1. Base interpersonal relationships on respect and trust.
2. Recognize differences in personality.
3. Turn weaknesses into strengths.
4. Allow occasional confrontation.

Even if you want to build a good interpersonal relationship with someone, it's impossible if there is no respect or trust between you. For that reason, you should respect and trust others without setting conditions on how they are or what they do. To do that, you need to recognize that everyone is different and accept their different personalities.

Even if parents or superiors exert influence on their children or subordinates, they can't mold them into a copy of themselves. The things that they may see as a weakness, to that person might be part of their individuality. If you want to develop a weakness into a strength, look at the chart on page 126.

Returning to our story, Yukari developed courage and faced her older veteran subordinate. This type of stance is called confrontation. It is necessary to occasionally have confrontations ...