13 habits to achieve emotional maturity

Emotional maturity is a capacity that allows people to live in peace with their feelings. When someone doesn’t have it, it’s easy for them to get carried away by what they feel, which can go wrong. Therefore, In order to manage emotions in a healthier way, it is necessary to achieve emotional maturity. This is only achieved when you actively work with certain habits that promote this quality.

Following this line, acquiring emotional maturity is one of the ways to a more pleasant and full life. You will not feel that you are in tune or complicit with yourself, but it is also likely to be the case with those around you. Furthermore, managing your emotional world better will help you deal with everyday difficulties in a more adaptive way.

Daily practices to achieve emotional maturity

Intelligent emotional management is a challenge. All people face emotional difficulties to a greater or lesser degree. What makes the difference is the effort invested in achieving emotional maturity.

Although it may seem difficult, in reality the key to achieving this goal is to be constant and committed. What you will see below are a series of useful recommendations to cultivate this characteristic.

1. Work on your assertiveness

The social context is perhaps the ecosystem in which we can best show our emotional maturity. In this sense, assertiveness is a key skill for correct emotional management. It is understood as the ability to express our emotions without attacking others..

Camargo et al (2009) published research in which they studied the correlation between self-esteem and assertiveness. Their results showed a positive association between the two dimensions. In this way, it is possible to affirm that by being more assertive, you will feel better about yourself.

2. Self-knowledge

We noted in the previous point that expressing what we feel in an intelligent way makes us feel better. But how can we express what we feel if we are not able to identify it? That’s why, good emotional intelligence is based on good emotional cognition.

3. Consider journaling

Writing your thoughts and feelings in a journal is a useful strategy for better emotional management. Besides, It will allow you to know more about how you perceive the world. and identify cognitive biases. The best way to keep a journal is to include in our agenda the task of completing it at a certain time of the day.

4. Reflect before acting

Instinct helps us, a lot, when we have to make quick decisions in which there is a lot of information.. On the other hand, it usually helps us little when we find ourselves floating in a negative emotional state with a high energy charge, such as those in which anger or annoyance predominates.

5. Learn that your emotions are valid

We have talked about emotional regulation, its virtues. But be careful, emotional self-regulation does not mean that we have to isolate and try to reduce the influence of our emotions to zero.

Vargas (2013) prepared a work on psychosomatic disorders and emotional distress in university students. In his article he mentions different situations (study pressure, relationship problems, family situation, etc.) that are susceptible to psychological stress and end up generating psychosomatic clinical symptoms.

6. Forget about being perfect

Parents and society in general often impose unrealistic expectations on people as they grow up. Consequently, they live trying to become a prototype of a perfect individual who does everything well. Nevertheless, The reality is that mistakes are an inevitable part of life for anyone.

Try to see what those unrealistic goals are that you have set and try to put them aside. Or even better, create new goals based on kinder and more real expectations for your being. You will see how this constant frustration decreases and you will be able to achieve emotional maturity.

7. Let go of the parts of the past that don’t help you

There is no denying the importance of the past, after all, from those experiences you have gotten to where you are. The problem occurs when people cling to episodes from their past that do not bring them any well-being.

Although, we must consider that many times these are chapters with a strong emotional charge that simply cannot be forgotten. In these cases, Psychological care is key to working on these conflicts.

8. See mistakes as opportunities

One of the reasons why errors are so undesirable and conflictive is because of the perception that exists about them. Making mistakes is generally associated with being a failure with no real capabilities. As a result, failures hit self-esteem and cause unpleasant feelings.

If, on the other hand, you start to see failures as opportunities to grow, you will have a very different feeling. Don’t forget that perfection is non-existent and that even bad experiences provide learning for people.

9. Avoid complaints

Adversities are part of life. But what’s the point of complaining all the time? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on finding solutions to problems?

When you see difficulties as challenges instead of threats, anxiety decreases. Sometimes the solutions are in plain sight, however, it is more comfortable to complain and do nothing.

10. Practice empathy

Empathy is about having the ability to understand the feelings and thoughts of others. This skill is essential to be able to maintain pleasant interpersonal relationships with others. Likewise, empathy is something demonstrated by people who have made an effort to achieve emotional maturity.

On the other hand, If you are empathetic, it is more likely that your environment will also be empathetic with you. Added to this, when you are understanding of others, you become kinder to yourself at the same time. Therefore, developing this quality benefits you enormously.

11. Mindfulness

Mindfulness or full attention consists of focusing the senses on the present experience, without judging it. A costly milestone because it is not what we are used to doing. The best of all is that anyone can learn and practice it.

12. Develop active listening

Active listening requires attention, it demands an effort on our part. It occurs when our mental activity is focused on what the other is communicating. It is very necessary, for example, to produce dialogues rich in content and meaning.

13. Attend psychotherapy

Without a doubt this is one of the best alternatives to develop emotional maturity that you can try. Psychologists have a series of technical and theoretical knowledge about emotional management based on evidence that can help you.

Finally, considers that psychological care not only serves to achieve emotional maturity. In the therapeutic space, you will find a place to express yourself without feeling like you are being judged.