Emotional Maturity: An Attitude Built By Experience

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL MATURITY?

When someone develops a balance between their intellect and the external world which is also noted as having integrity we identify them as emotionally matured. Allowing people to understand reality and craft a response to a situation without been influenced by either positive or negative emotions. When you are matured in both emotionally and socially you known to have a higher personality maturity. People might have 1 or a few of the below signs and that doesn’t mean that they are emotionally immature. Here are a few signs that can be an indicator that you might be dealing with an emotionally immature person,

1. Lack of empathy
2. Overreaction to situations
3. Failing to take ownership of actions
4. Always going for immediate gratification
5. Self-centeredness
6. Quick to anger
7. Deception or pathological lying

MARSHMALLOW TEST AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO COMMITMENT?

There are numerous tests that are unverified but if you take a look at the Marshmallow Test, it’s a proven psychological test that correlates with success. Immediate gratification vs delay gratification on for a possible greater future return. The wait tends to be the difference between successful people and marginal members of society. The Marshmallow test proves just that. Whether you are inclined to have quick rewards over waiting for a possible greater reward over time. This was tested with kids and they were given the option to have a marshmallow now or to have 2 in hours time. The ones that didn’t wait didn’t want to do the hard work or they wanted quick results and the others didn’t take the shortcuts. The success of life is delaying gratification for the future. Part of this is your personality and for others, you can learn this in life. Children from poor families tend to go for the quick kill to find shortcuts but on the flip side, you can learn to hold out, go to college get an education and discipline yourself for future success.

WHAT IS “CAUSE AND EFFECT” AND HOW IT RELATES TO UNDERSTANDING?

Cause and effect is a technique that assists us to identify, sort, and display possible causes of a specific problem. We can understand situations from another perspective and come to a better vantage point on a problem to find a better solution. Finding the cause of situations tells us why it happened and effect tells us about the result. Running this in practical situations give us the edge to better handle thing from a strategic position. You can further study this subject by looking up the Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram.

HOW TO ASSESS YOUR EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT?

With a few simple questions, we should be able to understand our emotional age. There are 3 cardinal virtues of emotional maturity. Communication, Trust and vulnerability. How do we respond to been let down, disappointed or uncertainly portrayed by the people we are dependent on? We might get upset but also will not communicate to the other the reason and try to explain why we are upset because our ego might be too great for us to go there. We might get furious and be angry and might insult back or to hide our defenselessness when we are profoundly hurt inside. We might grow cold because most times we fail to show people that we care when their actions hurt us. As a result, we have a false facade that we aren’t affected by their behaviour and not feeling anything might have replaced not been fully alive.

1. The Capacity to explain: Ability to explain to the person that upset us as to how their actions made us feel.
2. The Capacity to stay calm: People who know that their own view is always an option will not imminently assume and they will give others the benefit of the doubt and will not jump to conclusion assuming the worst. They know themselves enough to know that not everyone has a reason to mock them.
3. The Capacity to be vulnerable: People who have understood the idea that being close to anyone is taking a risk of opening them up to been hurt have sufficient inner strength to tolerate a relationship while coping with their own weaknesses. These people are not embarrassed to tell even the ones they have been humiliated by that they need help.

HOW TO FOCUS ON SELF-IMPROVEMENT?

Things don’t always turn out as we think it should adapting to ever-changing events that are beyond our control can be daunting. How we respond as individuals to an unexpected situation can be the fine line between success or failure. We can follow the method highlighted by the Critical Incident Technique or CIT to make informed decisions based on quality questioning and studying patterns which in return give the ability to solve practical problems in life.

The technique was initially developed by Psychologist John Flanagan to guarantee the effectiveness of aircraft bombings later developed for the corporate world. The technique is all about collecting direct observations of human behaviour to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving a problem. You can read more on this subject in the article THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE by JOHN C. FLANAGAN

Here are a few points that might aid in improving yourself.

1. Take up a new course
2. Set smart goals for life
3. Level up your skills
4. Wake up early and set tasks
5. Exercise Regularly and meditate
6. Identify blind spots and be kind
7. Network with positive impact influencers

Life is finite, create more memories and if you’re hit by a curveball handle it like a pro!

Udara Watawana

We understand the time and we understand the future. We know the concept of tomorrow than just living in the present. Let’s constantly daydream innovate and create world’s that don’t exist. Let’s reinvent ourselves and rediscover a life of awareness and happiness.