Personal Responsibility Essay
Laurie Smith
GEN 200
January 4, 2012
Adrianna Szymkowski

Personal Responsibility Essay I believe personal responsibility is an important part of success. Whether the success I am trying to achieve is educational, professional or personal. If I do not take reasonability for myself I will not be successful in anything I strive to do. It is my opinion that an important personal trait to have is organization. I believe with proper organization you can achieve personal responsibility which helps you achieve success.
I define personal responsibility as having integrity, accepting consequences and the effects that an individual’s actions have on others. To me integrity has three characteristics: being honest, having values or morals, and being self-aware. I believe it is a conscious decision to admit ones mistakes by telling the truth whether or not someone is watching me. Values are used to create an individual’s moral compass telling me what is right or wrong. I feel that many values a person has is often constructed by a person’s culture as well as the individuals that raised them; I believe that a person always has the choice to reevaluate and change their morals as they choose. For a person to have self-awareness I consider if the individual is not only reliable and trustworthy but also possesses humility and are humble instead of a sense of indulgent pride. Another trait of personal responsibility is accepting consequences. I consider accepting consequences as having the courage to face the fear of what may happen because of a person’s poor choices or mistakes. I also feel that to effectively do this is to accept with grace and not contempt, and to be part of solution to the problems caused. To ensure personal responsibility an individual must understand the effects their choices or mistakes have on others. The effects not only affect those directly involved but those who are a part of a life. The things a person does harms others and the individual on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels and that this last not only in the short term but the long run as well. An important thing to remember is that it is important to make mistakes in life; only if you learn from them. To be organized one must have goals and map how they plan to achieve these goals. An individual must also document important events and dates in some form of a calendar. Creating schedule allows a person to complete what is needed and allowing time to do activities that are enjoyable to the individual. By becoming a more organized person, which can be a very difficult task to some, permits an individual to become a successful college students.
If an individual does not possess personal responsibility they directly affect their college success. Integrity is one trait of personal responsibility that majorly impacts an individual’s college experience. A lack of integrity is often shown by their persistence to lying. If an individual behaves in such a way they are more likely to plagiarize their work believing they will not be caught. Plagiarism leads to failure of an assignment or the course itself. If a student is found guilty of plagiarizing more than once it can result in dismissal from the learning institution its self. Integrity also affects an individual’s ability to work in a team. A team knows whether a member lacks integrity. This individual often turns in assignments late, perhaps plagiarized as well as possibly incomplete. The rest of the members, often concerned with their team grades, could possibly choose not to use a member’s work and complete the member’s portion amongst themselves ensuring a better grade. If they choose to do this and omit the members name from the assignment, the member will find it hard to receive the grades they want. If a student is well organized they have a better chance at a successful college experience because they will find they do not take on more than they can handle. They know what they expect from themselves as well as what others expect. Being organized also prevents procrastination. By creating a schedule for one’s self they can see what they need to do within a certain amount of time to ensure time for them to enjoy their preferred recreational activities. Seeing what needs to be done before they enjoy other activities typically works in a motivational way to encourage an individual to complete a task rather than wait and complete later. Being organized is effective at decreasing the amount of stress an individual has. A student is less stressed because they now that they have time to completely finish a task with room for error rather than running into havoc as they try, often ineffectively, to complete all tasks before they are due. This also helps improve the quality of the work a student completes. A less stressed individual creates a healthy, energized and motivated student. To use personal responsibility in my educational plans I focus on two main points: organization and owning my mistakes. I use organizing techniques so much so it has become an art form to me. I have a pocket planner than has monthly and weekly calendars. It not only has sections for morning, afternoon and evening but has 4 additional areas that I label meals, Kylie, Kaiden and CCS (Concentric Concierge Services). This allows me to keep track of everything I have going on but doesn’t blanket all areas of my life together forcing me to carry multiple planners. I create daily, weekly and monthly to do list which I revise frequently. I have a control journal located on my desk that has a monthly calendar, copies of important paperwork and information sheets for whoever is watching my children, my long and short term goals and all my steps to achieve them as well as a plan to keep my house and children organized. I use my phone and tablet as backups setting reminders for important events. Every night I create a schedule for the following day making sure I have time to complete all my tasks listed for the day, including jobs I need to do, time to work on my school work, one on one time with my children individually and well as family time and individual time, it also includes what steps I need to ensure I have all ingredients needed for the days meals and allows them to be prepared in the shortest time possible. I am not perfect so like many people I don’t always own my mistakes. An example of this was one night, knowing I was exhausted I put off completely a few tasks. I told myself I would return to them after putting my son down for the night, even though I knew they had to be completed that evening. Well putting my son to bed I lay with him and fell asleep. The next morning I woke up late, resulting in my daughter barely making it to school on time and my son being late to his father’s house while I rushed to a doctor’s appointment. For the rest of the day I was behind because I had not only woke up late but had not completed the prior day’s tasks. Throughout the day I blamed not being on task on the fact we had lost power that night while we were sleeping; even though I knew the truth was the actions I chose to take the night before caused me not keeping a schedule the following day. I have been working on steps such as not over explaining and instead just apologize and offer suggestions to correct the situation. There are many ways to define personal responsibility, as well as how to measure a person’s success. But without having integrity, accepting the consequences of you actions and acknowledging the effects those actions have on others you do not have personal responsibility. Not find a style of organizing that works for a person on an individual basis can lead to a poorer quality as well as quantity in a person’s work, more stress, and wanting to procrastinate or not complete an individual’s tasks. This behaviors lead to an unproductive and unenjoyably college experience. To create the most positive and productive college experience a person must define personal responsibility for their self. And discover the traits they have and those they need to have, in order to practice personal responsibility.