Live BIG: How to Become Emotionally Mature

Hal hated the man, everything about him, from his knowing sneer to his rolling swagger.

He wished fervently he could get away and considered getting up and walking out without a word to either of them.  But then he garnered his faculties and decided to accept this reality.  He would choose how to respond, and his choice would be to act cordial and cooperative.  He felt a surge of strength as he realized that handling himself in a dignified manner with both these men would be a bigger personal victory than if he met with Keith alone. . . .

The Hero’s Choice

Do you want to change your life?  The single tool that you need, more critical than your intelligence, background or education, is emotional maturity.  In the last few blogs, we’ve been talking about exactly what emotional maturity looks like.

When your inner grown-up is running the show, you will be more self-aware.  You’ll recognize your feelings and manage them in a responsible way.  You’ll handle and build positive relationships and move yourself steadily toward your definition of success.  In other words, you will excel at life.

How can you be emotional mature?

1.  Be present.  Be in the moment.  You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s no less true for the repeating of it — this minute is the only one you have.  You can’t rewrite one minute of the past.  You can’t construct one minute of the future, except by taking hold of this minute you have right now.  You’re reading this blog right now.  What will you do with the next?  Focus on it when you’re in it.  And now the next?  Focus on it when you’re in it.   Hattie allowed herself to be defined by her past, her lack of education, her fear of rejection and change.  Each time she considers taking ownership of her present, her mind bounces back to those thing.  If she chooses to be present, she will instantly empower herself.  She could decide what she wants her remaining twenty or so years to consist of, and then set off to get it.

2.  Embrace reality.  Refusing to think about uncomfortable things gives those very things incredible power over your life.  Mona refuses to think about the reality of her financial situation and so continues to make it worse with each swipe of her card.  If you are worried about your finances, sit down and take stock of exactly where you are — how much you owe, for example, and exactly how you will pay it off.  Fun?  No.  Wildly uncomfortable?  Words can’t express it!  But by taking ownership of the reality, you’ve now equipped yourself to change it.

3.  Exercise responsibility.  You have choices.  You always have choices.  Refusing to admit that is like using a hard steel industrial padlock to secure yourself into a flimsy cardboard box.  There are numerous behaviors that Hattie could have changed in our example.  You also have numerous choices, but if you’re a “Bratty Hatty” they might be invisible.  Challenge your assumptions.

4.  Clarify your vision.  We talked about this a little bit in my blog about the definition of success.  Hattie wanders through her life, ruled by impulse and circumstance.  What does she want?  From our story, you’d have no idea of what she really wants out of her life, because she has no idea.  What do you want?  Define it, so you can get it.

5.  Act from Integrity.  No excuses.  No whining.  No hypocrisy.   Hattie pretends that she wants to be productive, but there’s no evidence of that in her actions . . . and the discrepancy doesn’t trouble her.  Again, challenge your assumptions.

By now, you’ve probably built a strong mental image of emotional maturity.  Maybe you’ve spotted some areas in your life that you want to change.  In my next blog, I’ll talk about another factor in your emotional maturity, called The Serenity Model.

Live Big: Are You A Bratty Hattie?

In an old house on the hill, live two sisters.  Only a year apart, they are very alike in appearance and life stories.  In their sixty-plus years, neither has ever married or gone more than fifty miles from her home.  But here is where the similarity ends.  Just look at how they conduct themselves on an average errand day.

The elder sister, Millie, always starts out bright and early on her errand day, hat perched neatly on her head and neatly penned list in her white-gloved hand.  She settles in her car, but before she starts off, she glances about her, checking her mental checklist:  Purse?  Wallet in purse?  Gas in tank?  Cell phone?  (Come on . . . Just because she wears gloves and a hat doesn’t mean she doesn’t carry a cell phone).

Once satisfied, she moves through her errands in a logical orders, taking into account both geographical considerations and logical considerations (the grocery store has to be last or the ice cream will melt).

Because she is organized, she has plenty of time to chat with the elderly Mrs. Dundridge to hear about her goiter for the third time and to take young Michael Caslow and his bike to the repair shop.  She treats herself to lunch — always trying a new restaurant or at least a new item on the menu — before facing the most difficult task of all.  She visits her father at the nursing home.  He has shrunken to an alarming emaciated state and no longer recognizes her, but she hopes some part of him feels the love she brings.

When she’s done, she usually stops by the community college to either browse the schedule or pick up a textbook for the next course she wants to take.  She’s in the middle of associates degree in marketing, and thinks she might take a part-time job when she’s done.  Her main goal is to continue learning and growing.

Millie’s sister Hattie has one errand or another to run nearly every day, because she’s constantly realizing too late that she’s out of ketchup in the middle of making sloppy joes or unable to find the paper punch she needs for scrapbooking in the cave of supplies that is her craft room.

She loves shopping, although she has to rotate credit cards, but she never goes into the mini-mart because the clerk used to fun of her in high school.  She think about visiting her father, but it makes her feel so awful that she usually changes her mind.  It’s been four months, in fact, since she forced her little car up the winding road to the hospital.

Sometimes she thinks about changing her life — getting a job to help pay down her credit cards.  There’s a “help wanted” notice on the craft store window.  She’d be perfect for the job, she thinks, but then rejects the idea.  Who would want to hire her?  She doesn’t have a degree or any special skills, and ,besides, she’s too old.  She should have gotten her degree when she was young and had the chance.

But it’s too late now.  Too bad.   If she worked at the craft store, she’d get a discount.  If she could just afford that amazing new scrapbooking file, she’d be able to organize her supplies.  Actually, she’d probably need two of the files.  Okay . . . six.  But then she could get it all organized.  But she couldn’t afford them.  Maybe in a few years, something nice would happen — a windfall or surprise — and everything would get better.

Since we’ve been talking about how emotional maturity can change your life, you’ve probably guessed that Hattie and Millie represent two ends of the emotional maturity spectrum.  I’m going to talk more about the specific qualities of emotional maturity in my next blog, but for today, let’s look at how you did on the Emotional Maturity Quiz in the last two blogs.  Total up your score if you haven’t yet and check your results.

If your score was:

0 – 10    You have attained near-perfect emotional maturity.  Or, more likely, you guessed the ideal answer and selected it.  Consider going through the questions again with an attitude of self-examination and willingness to challenge your assumptions.

11 – 30   You’re very high on the Emotional Maturity spectrum, again assuming that you responded with your feelings instead of guessing the ideal answers.  You’ve allowed your experiences to give you wisdom and you take responsibility for your life.

31 – 50    You fall somewhere in the adolescent range when it comes to Emotional Maturity.  Don’t be discouraged by this; the fact that you’re willing to reach for the power to change your life by answering honestly is a shining sign of your potential!

51 – 84  You’re in serious Hattie territory here — governed by habit, fear and blame.  Again, take heart from the fact that you’ve allowed the quiz to expose this self-limiting world view.  It takes courage to shine the light on our weaknesses.  That fact that you’ve displayed that kind of courage shows that you’re willing to go all the way to change your life!

Are you ready to unleash the power for life change that comes from attaining Emotional Maturity?  You’re going to be amazed by the forward-surge this gives you toward your bright future.  We’ll get started in my next blog.