Focus Your Life
Busy schedules and a desire for approval can make it difficult to say “no” and even harder to keep up with everything.
Identify Responsibilities
Life brings along many new experiences, but these good ideas can become a distraction or a burden if they prevent you from fulfilling your responsibilities.
Identify your most important responsibilities and prioritize accordingly. It does not matter how much you appear to have everything together at work, you cannot afford to neglect commitments to family, community, or friends.
As a friend, you might need to help someone move instead of going to a ballgame. As a son or daughter, you might need to spend a weekend helping your parents with home repairs instead of fishing or going to the mall.
Your job or your role in the community will involve certain responsibilities and might require certain standards of behavior. Fulfill these obligations.
These guidelines can help you determine where you should focus your energy, and help you know what you can realistically accomplish.
Set Priorities
Setting priorities should help you fulfill your responsibilities and benefit others in the most reliable way you can. If you have already agreed to do something with a friend, do it, even if a “better offer” comes along. If you already have commitments, you might not be able to visit a family member, but there are often other ways you can help.
As you recognize your responsibilities, you can prevent the important from falling victim to the pressing or the potentially beneficial. You might forego visiting with friends in order to further your education so that you can provide a greater benefit later.
Earn Trust
Greater independence comes from greater dependability. When a teenage girl takes good care of the dog, her parents can more likely trust her with a car. When a repairman does a good job on the kitchen sink, you will more likely trust him to install a new dishwasher. As you develop greater dependability, you can successfully manage greater responsibility.