Personal responsibility is essential in everyday life. Strong personal responsibility is essential to academic success. Most people think that personal responsibility is needed only in making the grade in high task/high output jobs. This is a true statement! People need to have the fortitude to complete our jobs, manage our money, and organize our lives. As we embark in higher education, especially an online environment, it is essential that we possess a higher level of personal responsibility. We know how important personal responsibility is in our everyday lives, but taking it up a notch is essential in the successful completion our degrees! It is also a detriment to our grades and ultimately our graduation if we choose not to have a high level of personal responsibility in our endeavors during our undergraduate work. There must be a plan for success as well using personal responsibility as the cornerstone to achieve our goal! Graduation! Let us look at some every day examples.
According to Stockdale and Brockett (2011) “Self-direction has long been recognized as an important component in adults' learning activities. However, almost without exception, the same adult educators who cite the centrality of this concept to adult learning suggest that concision and controversy exist with the nature and application of the concept.” (p. 162) Personal responsibility is essential in our lives. There are some that can wake up when they want, do nothing, and go to bed whenever they want and things are just done for them. For the other 99%, we require personal responsibility. Even stay-at-home parents, there is responsibility in setting the alarm clock, getting the children up and getting them off to school. At night, there is the responsibility in knowing what time it is to pick the children up, feed them, do their homework, and put them to bed. This may be “everyday stuff,” but without personally taking the steps to be responsible none of this would get done! It is also a great way to show the children it is important to have personal responsibility. We need to wake up on time, whether it is to go to work or take the little ones to school. Most people practice this in their everyday lives. To be truly successful in school, though, it needs to be taken up a notch or two.
Strong personal responsibility is essential in doing well in college and achieving academic success. We see how there must be responsibility in our lives. To achieve academic success we must have a stronger level of personal responsibility! If there is a certain level just to carry out our daily lives, adding to that must add to the amount of personal responsibility required to get “As” in class. Going to work and juggling school is a daunting task that requires the use of time management and the intestinal fortitude to get everything done. Even in the example above; the man or woman getting up, taking the children to school, cleaning the house, and making a great dinner is hard work. With a great deal of personal responsibility, this person can write down their schedule, put in time for class and assignments and also get the regular tasks done. I am tired just writing this!
This is twofold. Not only does this person need to plan school around life but also the amount of personal responsibility is elevated to achieve success. Studying for tests, writing papers, and going to class require discipline. Discipline is the trait that we possess to “get the job done”! We cannot show up and not listen or write and not organize our thoughts. If we fail to study, do not pay attention to the lessons and ignore the reading we will not achieve academic success. All of this takes a great amount of personal responsibility! What would happen if we fail to have strong personal responsibility? According to Swaner (2005) “If we didn’t possess the discipline to exercise our personal responsibility our goal to achieve academic responsibility would die. Levine and Cureton (1998) provide a menu of other behavioral problems, including a rise over the past two decades in eating disorders (by 58 percent), classroom disruption (by 44 percent), drug abuse (by 42 percent), gambling (by 25 percent), and suicide attempts (by 23 percent)” . (p. 17) If we do not go to class we will not know what the assignments are or what to study. If we do not study we will not pass tests. If there is no writing there is no paper to turn in leading to disastrous results in class. Do you know anyone that could do nothing for a class and get anything more than an “F”? Me, either. How about life?
If we fail to set the alarm we do not get up and the children will not make it to school. If we fail to cook we fail to eat. If we do not pay our bills we lose our transportation and our home. There are few jobs where one can show up when one wants and not do a thing and still get a paycheck. So everything we do is tied to a certain amount of personal responsibility! As stated earlier, one cannot stay at home and get an “A”; but you can stay at home and get an “F”!
Finally there must be a plan. We must organize our busy lives incorporating personal responsibility into our busy lives. It is important that the first day of class we read the syllabus. The work that needs to be done should be organized during the week. Ensure that steps are taken to form good habits. Strong personal responsibility is not easy, but attainable. A strict and adhered to schedule is imperative to strengthen our habitual minds in making us prompt and effective. If one is stronger in the morning, write papers in the morning. If one only has an hour at lunch to post then use the time wisely. Time management is so important if you want to have strong personal responsibility. We must stay disciplined to not only organize and manage our time but also to do the required reading. To write our papers and to be good members of our learning teams! Discipline to practice strong personal responsibility! Gray (n.d.), “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”
Personal responsibility is not always easy. Have the strength to plan your weeks down to dotting every “I” and crossing every “T.” Studying, working, writing, and cooking is tough. We cannot wake up when we want; there must be an alarm clock. We cannot stay at home and do nothing and still have a home. We cannot breeze through school without doing a thing and be successful. Finally we must have a plan to bring it all together! Everything we do takes responsibility and the discipline to carry out our tasks. To achieve true academic success there has to be strong, very strong personal responsibility.

References
Gray, E.M. (n.d.). Discipline Quotes. Retrieved from http://www.dailyinspiringquotes.com/discipline.shtml Stockdale, S. L., & Brockett, R. G. (2011, May). Development of the PRO-SDLS: A Measure of Self-Direction in Learning Based on the Personal Responsibility Orientation Model. Adult Education Quarterly, 61(2), 161-180.
Swaner, L. E. (2005, June). Educating for personal & social responsibility. Liberal Education, 14 – 20.