How Do You Develop Independence, and When Is It Important to Rely on Others?

What is independence?

• Independence can be understood as the ability to take care of yourself without assistance.

• Being independent also means being able to think for yourself.

• This means meeting your own needs, making your own decisions, solving your own problems, and — as you get older — paying your own bills. 

• In Western societies, emerging adults are generally eager to achieve independence in all these areas.

• However, it is more helpful — and effective — to think of independence more flexibly.

When to seek help or collaborate

• If you broke your leg, would you try to heal it yourself? If your boss assigned you a project that was meant to be done collaboratively, would you try to complete it yourself?

• In these examples, solving the problems by yourself would be unrealistic and ineffective. In these cases, we can understand independence differently. 

• In the broken leg example, independence might mean finding the doctor to treat your broken leg — and, eventually, paying for it yourself. 

• In the work project example, independence could mean identifying who to collaborate with, and responsibly completing your own portion of the work.

Peer pressure

• The flip side of independence relates to cultural norms and peer pressure.

• You don’t make decisions in a vacuum. You exist in your immediate social groups, your larger communities, and the overarching society you live in.

• How much of your behavior is impacted by those groups?

• Imagine it's Saturday night and your closest friends are all going to a party — but you have a test on Monday and you haven’t started studying yet. How easy is it to skip the party?

• What if only one of your friends is going to the party, but three others are staying home to study?

• If you care about college sports, you probably root for your school’s teams. If you went to a different school, how likely is it you would still root for the same teams?

Learning to prioritize

• Given all this, how do you decide when to prioritize independence versus leaning on others — or just going with the flow?

• Get in touch with your goals and values (see What Are Values, and How Are They Different From Goals?). How important is it to prioritize them in a given situation?

• Your close friends and loved ones probably take pride in supporting you sometimes (and you may feel the same about supporting them). How will turning down their help impact your relationships with them? Sometimes it may be worth it, and other times not.

• Think of all the people, history, and variables in a situation. Be fair to yourself and the other people involved. What is the best outcome for you, what is the best outcome for them, and is there a middle path where everyone can win?

• Ask yourself, how much is your ego playing a role in your need to be independent?

• Ask yourself, how much is self-doubt playing a role in your need to rely on others?

Takeaways

• As a general rule, if you often lean one way or the other — overly independent or overly dependent — you would probably benefit from leaning the other way sometimes.

• Life is about balance and flexibility.

• Focus on your own goals, values, and needs in the moment when you need to decide whether to prioritize a party over studying. Your friends’ priorities are their own.