Emotional Maturity Increases Your
Chance of Success in Life

by Amy Scholten, M.P.H.

What does it take to be successful in life? Brains? Luck? Hard work? A large inheritance? Those things surely don't hurt. But one of the most important keys to a successful life is emotional maturity. Emotional maturity is closely associated with self-esteem and seems to be a prerequisite for greater happiness, integrity, and success. People who are emotionally mature tend to be responsible, self-disciplined, and realistic, and therefore better able to meet genuine needs and achieve worthwhile goals.

We all know people who are intelligent but seem stuck at a much younger age emotionally. They habitually avoid responsibility for their behavior, their failures in relationships, work, or achieving personal goals, and they almost always blame others instead. Most of us have been emotionally immature at various points in our lives (I speak for myself here too). And some of us are emotionally immature in some ways, but not in others. But being emotionally stuck at a much younger age is something that can have serious consequences on your ability to achieve important life goals.

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Emotional immaturity is often the consequence of inadequate parenting or childhood trauma. When parents don't model emotional maturity for their children, their children are at risk for developing into emotionally immature adults who may not even realize that their attitudes and behaviors are contributing to many of their problems. Life is difficult, but emotional immaturity can make it even more of a struggle.

The chart below shows characteristics of emotionally mature versus emotionally immature people. Can you see how emotional maturity plays an important role in effective coping and success? By the way, "success" doesn't necessarily imply financial wealth or professional status, but rather, deep fulfillment and peace of mind.

 

Emotional Maturity	Emotional Immaturity
Self-aware: Willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, prejudices, and behaviors and choose differently, if needed. Open-minded.	Unaware: Assumes one's beliefs, assumptions, way of viewing self and world is correct. Avoids introspection and self-honesty. Narrow-minded.
Responsible: Accountable for actions, habits, decisions, and finances; is reliable.	Irresponsible: Blames others, feels like a victim, often unreliable, makes excuses.
Wise: Understanding, insightful, realistic, has clarity, learns from past, tends to make good decisions most of the time.	Ignore-ant: Chooses to ignore, fails to learn from past. Closed to different views. Often makes unwise decisions and repeats mistakes.
Self-disciplined: Accepts and controls passions, desires, and emotions; chooses what's right, perseveres.	Undisciplined: Wants everything now, avoids enduring any discomfort. Gives up easily. Seeks quick fixes.
High Self-esteem: Positive view of self, experiences self as a wellspring of love and wants to extend it.	Shaky Self-esteem: Looks to “get” self-esteem from others. Has difficulty feeling positive toward self and others.
Independent: Thinks through possible consequences when making decisions.	Dependent: Relies on others for decision-making and protection.
Healthy Relationships: Seeks stable partnerships, mutually responsible, authentic, communicates openly and assertively, cooperates, negotiates.	"Chaotic" Relationships: Shallow relationships, seeks gratification, runs from intimacy, enmeshed, plays the victim, perpetrator, or rescuer.

 

How to Increase Your Emotional Maturity

Stay Grounded in Reality

There's nothing wrong with daydreaming and idealism, as long as you're aware of what you're doing, your capabilities, and the difference between your perception of reality and your idealistic dreams.

To stay grounded in reality, avoid magical thinking—the belief that your dreams and goals will materialize with little or no effort on your behalf. The advertising industry loves to cater to magical thinking, offering us “quick,” “easy,” “effortless” solutions that we want to hear. Magical thinking is normal for children, but very self-defeating for adults.

Understand Your Emotions

Emotions are the spice of life and an important part of the human experience. However, problems arise when you feel ruled by your emotions or when you try to control your emotions completely and curb their spontaneity. Neither option is desirable. To deal with intense emotions:

• Observe them in a detached, almost scientific way when they arise.
• Visualize yourself gradually turning the dial down.
• Stay present, feel your emotions fully until their intensity and influence eventually decrease.

Once you understand what triggers your emotions, how they affect you, how they cool off, etc., you'll become more aware and skilled in dealing with them effectively. Please understand that this can take a while—even years. But as you develop the power to handle your emotions in a positive and constructive way, they will no longer control you and impede your goals and your life.

Express Your Emotions in a Healthy Way

Suppressing strong emotions like anxiety, anger, and grief does not make them go away! It makes them go "under the surface" where they can undermine your health, relationships and important life goals. On the other hand, emotional outbursts usually aren't in your best interest either.

Here are some tips for the healthy expression of emotions:

• Anxiety: Don't run from it. What you resist, persists. Instead of trying to drown it in substance use, food, or other escapist activities, learn about your anxiety and how to cope with it.
  
  
• Anger: Express anger assertively (not passively or aggressively). If you're unsure how to do this, consider taking assertiveness training. Another helpful way of channeling anger is writing about it, such as a letter (that you don't mail).
  
  
• Pain, Hurt: How do you respond to the inevitable slings and arrows of life? Do you overprotect yourself, perhaps through avoidant behavior? Overprotection may seem like the right thing to do but it can prevent you from developing strength and resiliency. Do you feel like a victim? If so, how does that help you? Moderate exposure to pain and loss provides opportunities to develop coping skills. Allow yourself to grieve and express your sadness so that you can eventually move on.

Examine Your Beliefs and Assumptions

A surprising degree of our thinking and behavior is influenced by beliefs, assumptions and prejudices that we adopted in childhood when we had limited exposure to the world around us. But unless we verify them and find them to be relevant and beneficial to our present day reality, they can hinder adult thinking and behavior.

To develop emotional maturity, examine your beliefs and assumptions:

• Listen to and try to understand different points of view, even if you don't agree with them.

Instead of Feeling Like a Victim, Put Things in Perspective

Do guilt, perfectionism, feelings of victimization, insecurity, or envy or jealousy hold you hostage? These problems are often closely tied with low self-esteem. Here are some reminders that can help you develop some perspective:

• Mistakes and failures are normal—use them as learning tools for your growth and prosperity.
  
  
• Don't expect perfection of yourself, others, or life. Think of life as a very messy classroom where we are all engaged in a constant learning process!
  
  
• Thinking of yourself as a victim is extremely disempowering. Everybody has their cross to bear. The pain and losses you feel have been felt and survived by others. If your pain is too much to bear, if you tend to be very sensitive, or you don't have adequate social support, seek help from a knowledgeable and skilled therapist, coach, friend, or spiritual advisor.
  

• Write down all your blessings, no matter how humble. Helping others who are less fortunate can help you feel better. Try to rejoice in the good fortune of others instead of succumbing to envy. What you bless in others, you bless in yourself. The people you envy also have pain and losses to bear throughout life. If you habitually feel envious, actively work on your self-esteem and goals. Don't compare yourself with anyone else but you!

Do you fear that emotional maturity will make you stodgy and boring? Maybe you'll be perceived that way by immature folks who constantly seek drama or those they can easily manipulate. But emotional maturity isn't about sacrificing endearing childlike qualities such as wonder, openness to life, bouts of silliness, or creativity. In fact, those traits—along with emotional maturity—will likely increase your chances of a more fulfilling life.

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