Live BIG: Are You Emotionally Mature (part 2)?

The phone rang.  Hal started to pick it up, but pulled back and looked at the caller ID.  His parents. Nope, not ready to deal with them yet.  Breakfast tomorrow with his father would be soon enough.  For a moment, he wished Kathy would call them and blurt out the news.  Of course, she wouldn’t.  Besides, he wanted to make sure his father realized how unexpected and devastating the board meeting had been.

But that was tomorrow.  What would he do today?  He needed to clean out his office at Western.  No way.  Put that one off a few more days.

The Hero’s Choice

We’ve been talking about emotional maturity, and what a critical component they are when you want to change your life for success.  In my last blog, we started the quiz to determine whether you have emotional maturity.  If you missed that blog, please go back and take the first part of the quiz.

Before we start, I want you to think about goals you’ve set over the past few years.  Think about one that was really important to you, but that that you haven’t, yet at least, succeeded in, even though you tried more than once.  This might be going back to school to complete a degree, getting out of credit card debt, consistently spending more time with your kids, losing weight, or decluttering your house to the point that you can keep up with it.  Write the goal down — even if it makes you feel embarrassed or depressed that you’ve written it down so many times before.

Now respond to the following statements regarding that goal.  For each of the following statements, give yourself 3 points if it is almost always true or you strongly agree, 2 points if it is usually true or you agree, 1 point if it’s occasionally true or you might agree or disagree, and 0 points if it is hardly ever true or you disagree.

8.  I’ve set that goal more than once as a New Year’s or birthday resolution, but I’ve never really stuck to it for more than a week or two.

9.  I wasn’t able to complete that goal because my family members, work, financial situation, or responsibilities made it impossible.

10.  When I look at that goal realistically, I see that it would be a major change in my life or behavior, something that I probably should have broken down into smaller steps.

11.  I would never order anyone else to transform his life as dramatically as I expect myself to with this goal.

12.  If I were a different kind of person — smarter, more talented, richer — I would have achieved this goal.

13.  I should have accomplished this goal.  In fact, I should have never needed to make it a goal.  If I was what I should be, I would have accomplished it automatically instead of having to resolve to do it.

14.  There’s something wrong with me that makes it impossible for me to accomplish this goal.

15.  Every time I start to make progress on this goal, something happens that shuts it down.  Then I don’t get back to it for months or years.

16.  I really couldn’t tell you exactly what it would take in time, money or resources for me to actually achieve this goal.

And now, for the final section of the emotional maturity quiz, take a look at your day to day life, to see how you’re handling the choices you have over each twenty four hours.

17.  I spend most of my days “putting out fires.”

18.  I don’t have time to make to-do lists or list goals — I just have too much to do.

19.  Sometimes I make a list of what I need to do, but I never refer back to it again, and most of it never gets accomplished.

20.  I do everything at the last minute — even things I knew about months beforehand — because I’m too busy to be proactive.

21.  Every minute of my day belongs to other people; I just run around trying to satisfy all of their needs.

22.  I can’t think of anything I do consistently — daily or weekly — to make progress on a non-life-sustaining goal.

23.  I don’t have the opportunity to make choices about how I spend my day.

24.  If other people respected me and my time more, I’d have the ability to change some things in my life.

25.  The people in my life would have a fit if I suddenly started changing how I live; they’d never let me get away with it.

26.  I wish my family members understood how much I want to have/do/be something different.

27.  My financial circumstances make it impossible for me to succeed.

28.  My health makes it impossible for me to succeed.

Add up your score from this blog and the last, and tomorrow we’ll take a look at the results.  The sooner we can shore up your emotional maturity, the sooner you can change your life into the adventure of success and joy.