Whose task is this?

Alfred Adler was a Viennese doctor who joined Sigmund Freud's discussion circle in 1902. Within a decade the two had fallen out: Adler thought Freud put too much weight on the past and on sex, and too little on our goals and our relationships with other people. In 1911 he left, and founded his own school, which he called individual psychology.

For much of the twentieth century Adler was less famous than Freud or Jung. Then, in 2013, the Japanese philosopher Ichiro Kishimi and the writer Fumitake Koga published The Courage to Be Disliked, a dialogue between a philosopher and an anxious young man about Adler's ideas. It has since sold millions of copies around the world. One idea from it stays with many readers: the separation of tasks.

A lot of worry comes from trying to do other people's tasks for them: making sure they approve of us, that they're never disappointed, that they think the right thing about our choices.

The separation of tasks asks a simple question about each part of a situation: who will ultimately live with the result of this choice? Preparing your presentation well is your task. Whether your manager likes it is theirs. Being honest and kind with a friend is yours. How they feel about it is theirs.

This isn't about becoming cold or not caring. You can still help, listen and offer. But you stop trying to control what was never yours to control, and put your energy into the part that is.

• Stoicism

  Epictetus began his handbook by sorting things into what is up to us and what is not.

• Christianity

  The Serenity Prayer asks for the serenity to accept what we cannot change, and the courage to change what we can.

Think of a situation with another person that you're worrying about.

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You're dreading that a friend will be upset when you turn down their invitation. What would the separation of tasks suggest?