Improving emotional maturity: 6 signs you’re growing

For many people, maturity comes with age. Even still, factors ranging from upbringing to genetics can influence how you grow into emotional maturity. If you want to work on improving emotional maturity, know it’s often not a straightforward path. You might face emotional challenges or setbacks, but these barriers are normal parts of the process. 

Perhaps most importantly, for emotional maturity to improve, it’s best to practice self-compassion, self-awareness, and self-love. With a strong connection to yourself, you can identify areas for improvement and develop behaviors that indicate you’re more emotionally mature.

What is emotional immaturity?

Emotional maturity, also referred to as emotional-social intelligence or emotional intelligence, means having the ability to acknowledge and understand your feelings. Emotional immaturity, on the other hand, can point to a lack of emotional regulation skills or underdeveloped emotional permanence. Part of overcoming emotional immaturity is understanding that it’s an ongoing process requiring sustained effort, dedication, and grit. 

As you progress through life, the following forms of maturity evolve as part of your growth and development:

• Physical maturity: Your body goes through four stages of maturity, including infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
• Mental maturity: Over time, your cognitive skills, such as problem-solving or processing information, improve.
• Emotional maturity: As you age and develop, you gain better regulation over your emotions. For example, you go from a toddler, expressing emotional reactions through tantrums, to a teenager, expressing yourself words and reflecting on your actions.

If you’re an emotionally mature individual, you don’t view negative emotions as weaknesses. Rather, you recognize the importance of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. When intense emotions arise, you grant yourself space to experience them without trying to ignore or control them.

Research published in the International Journal of Indian Psychology in 2020 linked emotional maturity and self-efficacy. The study found that participants who demonstrated greater emotional maturity were also likely to have high self-efficacy, a concept defined as trusting one’s ability to solve problems and navigate difficult situations. 

Additionally, emotional maturity influences more than your ability to manage intense emotions. For example, as an emotionally mature individual, you not only understand and accept emotions, but you also demonstrate increased proficiency in solving problems at work. This means you’re better able to stay calm under pressure, approach challenges with clarity, and communicate effectively with colleagues.

Instead of letting frustration or stress take over, emotional maturity helps you focus on finding solutions. You’re better able to foster a constructive and resilient work environment, even in difficult situations. 

How to improve emotional maturity

Improving emotional maturity requires self-awareness and the ability to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Since confronting repressed emotions is demanding, there are times when you might feel overwhelmed, and that’s OK. 

Remember to rest as you strive toward personal development. While this is a time to focus on yourself and set emotional goals, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Ensure you prioritize good sleep hygiene, a healthy diet, and exercise. You can also surround yourself with uplifting people to help you maintain a positive mindset. 

Here are five tips to help you become more emotionally mature.

Develop a growth mindset

A growth mindset is crucial when setting and working toward goals because it welcomes ongoing learning and improvement. It encourages self-awareness of your inner world. Focus on continuous self-improvement and growth rather than nitpicking failures and shortcomings. With a positive outlook on challenges, you can approach each obstacle as an opportunity to learn and keep an open mind when meeting new people or entering new situations. 

If you’re just learning how to create a growth mindset and improve emotional maturity, consider taking an emotional intelligence self-assessment. Within it, you’ll answer a series of questions that ask you to look closely at your emotional intelligence and maturity. Here are examples of questions that you’ll rank from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”:

• Do you recognize the impact you have on others?
• Do you handle stress well?
• Are you open to feedback?

A self-assessment can be a great way to start training your brain toward a growth mindset. It can help you change your perspective and discover previously untapped potential to improve. 

Set healthy boundaries

Your friends and family may have a habit of crossing the line and making you uncomfortable, but reacting differently to their behavior can help you become more emotionally mature. Healthy boundaries that prioritize your well-being and make you feel safe are crucial. 

By remaining firm with these boundaries, you demonstrate self-esteem, self-respect, and self-worth. These are essential qualities for developing balanced and mature interpersonal relationships and remaining true to who you are.

Understand your emotions

Understanding your emotions is important for emotional maturity, but vulnerability and expressing your emotions can feel scary. Recognizing and welcoming emotions is the first step to handling them more maturely. 

When you know what makes you happy, encouraged, or excited, you can use that to your advantage instead of reacting to the first hint of negativity. Ask yourself what makes you uncomfortable and why. Additionally, the more you understand your emotions, the more empathy and compassion you can extend to others.

Own your mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. But when you’re striving to be emotionally mature, it’s how you respond to your mistakes and take responsibility that matters most. 

Next time you make a mistake, aim to apologize without making excuses. View each mistake as a learning opportunity to practice new skills, learn more about yourself, and become more emotionally mature.

Find a role model

When you were growing up, the primary caregivers in your life might have been emotionally immature. However, as an adult, you can choose the people you spend time with and look up to. These positive and uplifting figures might even become mentors who help you work on improving emotional maturity. 

Watch as they handle challenging situations while respecting their own emotions. It could give you insight into healthy habits to form and inspire you to keep working to develop your maturity.

Signs of emotional maturity

As you work toward developing emotional intelligence skills, being aware of the signs of emotional maturity can help guide your behavior. Identifying where you excel and struggle can help you determine where to focus your efforts. 

Here are five signs that you’re emotionally mature:

• You’re empathetic. Emotional maturity allows you to view situations and experiences from another person’s perspective. You recognize when someone may be going through a difficult time. With empathy and emotional maturity, you can genuinely understand and feel compassion for another person’s experience, seeing their emotions from their perspective without losing sight of your own.
• You can set healthy boundaries. The ability to set healthy boundaries requires emotional awareness and maturity. You demonstrate emotional maturity if you can identify your discomfort with a boundary and articulate why it exists. It’s also important to maintain your boundaries once they’ve been established and stay true to your authentic self.
• You take responsibility for mistakes. When you acknowledge mistakes, apologize, or show a willingness to have difficult conversations to resolve a conflict, you’re acting emotionally mature. An emotionally immature individual might blame others, behave defensively, or avoid being accountable after making a mistake.
• You embrace your emotions. With emotional maturity, you don’t fear or avoid your feelings. Instead, you create space to experience and process them. You likely understand that unpleasant emotions are just as important as enjoyable ones. 
• You’re able to ask for help. Knowing when you’ve reached a limit and need to ask for help is a sign of emotional maturity. Such humbleness and vulnerability often mean you’re emotionally mature because you’re able to admit that you lack certain skills or simply need support.
• You can manage stress. A 2021 study published in the International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education found that high emotional intelligence reduces the likelihood of burnout. This is partly due to your ability to manage stress, maintain mental well-being, and practice self-care.
• You’re an active listener. When you listen to others speak, they have your undivided attention. You use body language, facial expressions, or other kinds of nonverbal communication to show you’re paying attention and care about what they have to say. As a result, you demonstrate an ability to create space for another person to express themselves. 
• You avoid interrupting others. By interrupting others when they speak, you show an inability to listen that indicates you might be somewhat selfish and immature. Not interjecting shows you respect another person enough to listen to their words. If you do accidentally interrupt someone, you apologize and redirect the conversation back to the original speaker. 
• You reliably meet deadlines. When faced with a due date, you’re able to schedule your time to ensure you achieve it. You avoid procrastinating and can implement helpful time management strategies if needed. 

The underlying theme of emotional maturity is your ability to recognize and accept your emotions, even if they’re unpleasant. You respect your needs, embrace your feelings without judgment, and seek help when necessary. 

Signs of emotional immaturity

Signs of being emotionally immature can manifest in many different situations, but learning how you might demonstrate emotional immaturity can help you identify which habits you need to improve. 

Here are five signs you might be emotionally immature:

• You struggle to express emotions. If you avoid being in contact with your feelings at all costs, you might be emotionally immature. This is especially true if it’s difficult to be vulnerable enough to express your feelings or admit to negative experiences.
• You tend to blame others. If something goes wrong and your first instinct is to blame others, it can signify emotional immaturity. It’s an automatic thought not to hold yourself accountable for your actions or take responsibility. You might only be thinking about yourself or lack impulse control. 
• You don’t ask for help. It might indicate immaturity if you don’t use your communication skills to ask for help even when you need it. You’re too afraid of seeming insecure or weak, so you refrain from asking for guidance or acknowledging that you’re experiencing signs of burnout at work.
• You tend not to handle stress well. If you had a stressful day and find yourself becoming easily hurt by or upset with others, it’s likely because you’re pushing away emotions. According to research published by the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, emotional suppression leads to adverse health effects that can result in an earlier death. 
• You might struggle to handle constructive feedback. If someone provides constructive feedback with the intent of helping you succeed yet you struggle to accept it, it could be a sign of emotional immaturity. Rather than maintain open-mindedness, you might feel overwhelmed by guilt, shame, or anger, which makes it challenging to handle certain types of feedback.

As you identify areas of emotional immaturity in your life, remember that it can be situational, too. Past trauma can make certain environments, situations, or individuals triggering. As a result, you may struggle to handle intense emotions. 

Know how to spot your triggers. Practice self-compassion while you learn, grow, and develop as a person.

Factors that contribute to emotional immaturity

Learning what causes your emotional immaturity will help you better understand how to grow. Here are a few factors that contribute to being emotionally immature:

• Childhood trauma, including attachment wounds and the environment 
• Being spoiled as a child
• Inability to stay present
• Lack of self-awareness
• Sense of self and identity
• Mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and autism

The following are real-world examples of these factors impacting an emotional reaction:

• You find yourself in an argument with your sibling. Do you take the time to examine your feelings and think before saying something to them, or do you let your negative emotions spill out and blame your sibling for the argument? Do you bring up similar past arguments while refusing to accept responsibility? 
• Your manager has given you some feedback on your last assignment, and it’s mostly negative. Do you acknowledge that this wasn’t your best work but that receiving feedback helps you grow? Or do you get angry, blame a team member for distracting you, and call your manager rude for giving you harsh feedback? 

Showing accountability demonstrates that you aren’t afraid of making and learning from your mistakes, a mark of emotional maturity. If your instinct is to use defense mechanisms in any confrontation, it might indicate that you aren’t in a place to be honest about your actions and feelings. 

Understanding yourself, your habits, and past experiences will help you pinpoint what’s stopping you from developing more emotional maturity.

Strive for improving emotional maturity

Improving emotional maturity can be challenging at first. Remember, being emotionally mature doesn’t happen once you reach a certain age. Instead, it’s something you work toward each day.

Emotional maturity helps you communicate better, have healthier relationships, and express yourself more clearly. Rather than being ashamed about how you feel, you can recognize that your emotions are valid and you deserve self-acceptance. 

It can be helpful to ask for help from a coach for guidance and support as you strive to change.  Learn to develop emotional intelligence and self-regulation with a BetterUp Coach and improve your emotional maturity.