What is the difference between mature and immature behavior? How do you discover the difference? What indications point to adult behavior? What indications point to immature behavior? Emotional maturity, or lack thereof, can be found in our behavior or mood. How we respond to difficult or difficult situations also provides an indication of our (im)mature behavior.
Emotional maturity
Emotional maturity is reflected in us:
- Behaviour,
- Vote and on
- The way we respond to (difficult or difficult) situations.
Comment
How might we describe ourselves? Could we describe ourselves as mature, or do we sometimes react immaturely? What are our reactions to difficult or difficult situations?
Indication of adult behavior
The following is an indication of adult behavior:
- Generally you remain calm and relaxed,
- You are flexible in your attitude,
- You take responsibility for yourself, your family and other circumstances,
- You are eager to learn and enjoy acquiring knowledge,
- You are positive about developing yourself,
- You have a great sense of humor and humor is a big part of your life,
- You laugh every day,
- You can laugh at yourself, but also at circumstances,
- You feel at ease,
- You rarely criticize others,
- You have a general attitude of: Live and let live,
- You easily express disappointments in your life and then move on,
- You can deal with setbacks and disappointments fairly easily,
- You are generally easy to get along with others,
- You have an optimistic attitude,
- If something doesn’t work, you look for other options.
Indication of immature behavior
The following is an indication of immature behavior:
- You are (too) often tense and irritated,
- You have the greatest difficulty being flexible,
- You can allow yourself to appear reluctant,
- You almost always blame others for your own problems,
- You almost always blame others for difficult situations,
- You have the greatest difficulty in realizing that your own contribution to a problem is indeed present,
- You have difficulty learning something new,
- You can (too often) resist new ideas,
- You refuse to consider alternatives,
- You don’t change your attitude if ever,
- You don’t change your behavior, if ever,
- You don’t use much humor in your life,
- You laugh too little,
- You’re too busy with yourself
- You find it difficult to deal with shame,
- You quickly feel less comfortable,
- You can quickly become annoyed with others,
- You regularly criticize others
- You find it difficult to deal with disappointments
- You find it difficult to deal with setbacks
- You find it difficult to deal with failures
- You are able to linger in negative emotions,
- Others may describe you as “difficult” to deal with,
- Others may describe you as “exhausting;”
- You are capable of being quite pessimistic,
- You refuse to acknowledge the existence of other possibilities.
Black and white
NB! The above indications are real indications! In everyday life, not everything is as black and white as described above! We can react immaturely
- Because we don’t feel good,
- Because we are sick or
- Because we just received bad news.
We can respond maturely
- Because we just won the lottery or
- Because we are in love.
Keep this in mind when going through these indications!
Improve
Can we improve our adult behavior? Can we improve our immature behavior? Of course that’s possible! Answer the questions below honestly with someone you trust deeply and whose opinion you sincerely value:
- How self-aware are you?
- How good are you at showing your emotions?
- How well are you at processing your emotions?
- How do you deal with difficult situations?
- How do you deal with difficult situations?
- How easily can you interact with others?
- Are you able to influence others (positively)?