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Personal Responsibility

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Personal Responsibility
Sheronda Guy
Gen/200 Foundations for General Education and Professional Success
September 17, 2012
Jeremy Vencel

Personal responsibility is the characteristic of accepting complete responsibility for your actions, while acknowledging the possible consequences that those actions may have on others and your academic career. It is the understanding that what you do impacts your overall personal success. There is a direct relation between personal responsibility and college success. In fact, it is the foundation needed to ensure your academic goal is achieved. Because of its importance, it is necessary to develop a preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility in an educational environment. Having personal responsibility not only determines the level of success one will achieve in society but also academically.
College success is closely related to personal responsibility. In order to successfully reach your goal of obtaining a college degree you have hold yourself accountable for how well you perform during your academic career. Accountability is the understanding that your progression while attending college is solely your responsibility and your actions ultimately determine your level of success. Accepting personal responsibility is accepting that whatever the outcome will be is at no one else’s fault but your own. It is the ability to acknowledge that you are personally responsible for everything that you say and do. Canfield and Switzer (2005) writes, “If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life” (p.3). Not everyone acquires this characteristic. People in today’s society are more apt to credit everyone but themselves for their own shortcomings (Canfield & Switzer, 2005). In this book the author emphasizes the ideal of taking complete accountability and control of your own destiny. The Success Principles stresses that for every achievement, for every failure, and for every level reached, it is almost entirely dependent upon the presence of personal responsibility (Canfield & Switzer, 2005). Being successful in college can be achieved through acting responsibly, acknowledging your obligations, performing to the best of your ability, and most of all holding yourself fully accountable for your actions. It also encompasses acknowledging your commitments, knowing what it takes to follow through with those commitments, and understanding how to recover or prevent yourself from falling short. Applying characteristics of personal responsibility will yield positive results and should act as a foundation for achieving your goal of obtaining a college degree. If the payoff for bad behavior is equally bad, then it is obvious of what the payoff will be for good behavior achieved when you choose to improve as a direct result of personal responsibility. So in relation to college success, if you perform bad the result will be bad but if through personal responsibility you perform really well then expect positive results yielding successful academic completion.
Just as with everything else in life, it is always a good idea to have a strategy for practicing personal responsibility in order to achieve academic success. Developing a preliminary plan can act as a blueprint of exactly how you expect to build towards successfully completing college. My own preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility is inclusive of several things. My plan consists of personal things that I can do as I work towards my academic goal and steps I can take to seek the assistance of others to help support this goal.
There are several personal approaches I plan to take to ensure I am not only productive, but that I am also producing quality work. First, as assignments are posted I schedule a time to review them to determine what resources are needed for completion. I have found that if I preview the assignments before actually attempting to complete them, I can determine approximately how much time it will require. Therefore, I can then set aside adequate time to begin working on the assignments to ensure they are completed in a timely manner. This method actually acts as a domino effect as it prevents procrastination, which in turn prevents poor quality work. The more time you allow for completing assignments, the more time allowed for usage of available resources to perform more thorough research. This also allows for revisions if necessary. In addition to this, another aspect of my preliminary plan is to ensure that I am submitting quality work to the best of my ability. This can be accomplished by utilizing all available resources without the use of anyone else’s works or ideas. There are so many ways to find helpful information that can be highly beneficial. Focusing on your assignments and freeing yourself of any distractions can also be beneficial in producing quality work. I have found that sitting outside on my patio away from the distractions of the television or my children helps me to focus more of class assignments. Removing myself from an overly stimulating environment has proven to be an extremely efficient method. It took a while for me to realize what necessary actions were needed in order to completely focus on assignments but I definitely saw an increase in the overall quality of my work.
My preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility also includes reaching out for assistance when needed. In addition to written resources, there are college staff members that are available to lend a helping hand or a little direction. I will not hesitate to reach out to my instructor for guidance on assignments or class material when something is not quite clear. Also, I will communicate with my fellow classmates who may be able to offer some assistance from experiences they may have encountered. They could also possibly provide guidance towards resources that I may not know are available. Resources are not only defined as written material but also can be inclusive of other people, especially your class instructor and/or peers. While keeping in mind that this is just a preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility, I will find ways to prepare myself for changes that are likely to occur throughout my academic career.
My interpretation of personal responsibility is the characteristic of taking responsibility for your actions and everything that follows. Acting and thinking in a sense that your success or failure is a direct consequence of those actions. It is the ideal of acknowledging that you’re solely accountable for your personal being. There is a close relationship between personal responsibility and college success. It is believed that personal responsibility acts as the foundation needed to ensure successful completion of an academic program thus obtaining a degree. There are several steps necessary to guide you towards achieving the highest level of personal responsibility and creating a blueprint is one of them. Developing a preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility for college can be very beneficial. It allows for determination of what actions are needed to achieve positive results and how to execute those actions. Preliminary plans are just that preliminary and are destined to change as you progress academically. You may find that your plan for practicing personal responsibility in an educational environment will grow. It is important to remember that no one person’s interpretation of personal responsibility is the same and will vary from person to person.

References
Canfield, J., & Switzer, J. (2005). The success principles: how to get from where you are to where you want to be. New York City, New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Tracy, B. (2006). Taking personal responsibility. Retrieved from
http://www.successmethods.org/brian_tracy-a19.html

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