The Importance of Personal Responsibility

The Importance of Personal Responsibility

GEN/200

4 March 2013

Janine Wright

Even though some people get by better with just “winging it” most people need to have a more structured approach to things. Personal responsibility is very important to a good student because with a solid plan in place people can achieve much more out of their goals and personal responsibility for one’s own actions helps to keep things in perspective.

Personal responsibility means accountability for what people do and not blaming others if it goes badly. R. Haskins says “The demise of personal responsibility occurs when individuals blame their family, their peers, their economic circumstances, or their society for their own failure to meet standards.” This is probably the best quote for defining personal responsibility. The quote covers almost any excuse someone will use for why someone failed at doing something. The lack of personal responsibility is causing many problems for people in today’s society. When a person’s car gets a flat tire they don’t usually start off by saying something like “oh well I’ve had these tires for years now so it was bound to happen.” The statement usually starts with “It must have been the oil change I just got at Valvoline, they must have done something to my tire.” People automatically put excuses in to their heads regarding why something went wrong in their lives instead of thinking rationally about it. Maybe it was that the person did not rotate their tires every six thousand miles or that the tires were just old. In school students usually say that the teacher did not like them or they did not fully understand the assignment that was given to the student. Instead the student could ask themselves what they could have done to prevent this from happening in the future, but people usually immediately blame others. An easy way to prevent getting a bad grade on an assignment is to ask questions about it even if the student believes that they fully understand what is expected. Asking questions about an assignment can bring rise to other questions that you had not considered until the student started discussing it with other students or the instructor. This in turn puts the student in a better position for understanding the assignment and getting the best grade possible for the class.

The biggest part of success in college is to have personal responsibility and setting goals or milestones for academic success. As TJ Philpott says in his online article “By taking personal responsibility of your own actions in the pursuit of goals and objectives you have set increases your chances of reaching your goals.” With personal