What is Emotional Maturity? And Why Should You Care?

​If emotional intelligence is a “set of competencies that allow you to apply thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions about yourself and others, enabling you to be smart with your feelings (Six Seconds), then what is emotional maturity? And should you care?
 
This topic was the focus of this month’s Six Seconds Connect and Learn for the Asia Pacific Region.  We started by exploring what emotional maturity is. Here are some of the answers offered by the EQ practitioners in attendance: 

• Being a role model with our emotional intelligence.
• Having a compassionate, calm and balanced disposition.
• Having the ability to interpret the message our emotions are giving us and then being able to use those messages to manage our emotions in an appropriate way.
• Being masterful with our emotional awareness and being able to use that information to navigate our emotions in beneficial ways when we engage with others.
• The capacity to recognise emotions and use this information to navigate emotions.
• An ongoing process that takes place throughout our lives.
• A practice and a focus that requires sustained effort and that has no finish line.  

​The distinction between emotional intelligence and emotional maturity, at first glance may not seem clear and a little like it is merely a play on words. However, there is a nuance here that is really important. At its heart, it’s about the choices we make and our commitment to become more aware, to be more intentional and more purposeful.
 
At its core, emotional intelligence is a set of competencies that enable you to “perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions” (Wikipedia). As we develop these competencies it provides us with the “ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour” (Peter Salovey and John Mayer cited by Andrew Colman in A Dictionary of Psychology). As such, emotional intelligence competencies enable us to define what sits within emotional intelligence are and are incredibly useful in measuring and learning the behaviours needed. It provides an evidence-based track to follow and frame what is expected (Drake, 2023). However just because we may have developed these skills and awarenesses does not necessarily mean we will choose to apply them appropriately.  Or that we will choose to apply them at all, which I have witnessed on several occasions with clients. 

​Or put more plainly: 

“Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy.”

– Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics.
​

​​The notion of maturity goes beyond the building, cultivation and measuring of competencies. For example, David Drake (2018 and 2022) talks about narrative maturity and defines it as “the degree to which people can internally and externally narrate their experiences in order to respond to their environment in an appropriate and desired manner.” Emotions are a critical component of this process of navigating our experiences.  And the more secure we become, the more we can give ourselves the space we need to fully process our experiences, of ourselves, of others and to make conscious healthy choices (Drake 2022).  In turn this determines our adeptness and ability to cope, to connect with others; and to create and contribute.  As a result, emotional maturity is an ongoing commitment to practicing emotional intelligence and a devotion to mastery of our emotional intelligence. Or as George Leonard says it’s a process, a journey that requires our willingness to stay on the path day after day, year after year, for as long as we live. 
​

“We fail to realise that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives."

- George Leonard (1923 - 2010)

​This is where the Six Seconds model of emotional intelligence based on three pursuits of Know Yourself, Choose Yourself and Give Yourself really comes to the fore. 

Source: Source: Six Seconds – SEI-LTC Assessment​

​This is a model of emotional intelligence in action. At their core, these three pursuits are about:
1. Become more AWARE (noticing what you do)
2. Become more INTENTIONAL (doing what you mean)
3. Become more PURPOSEFUL (doing it for a reason)

​These three pursuits invite us into a new way of seeing, knowing and being in the world with our emotions. If you commit to practicing these three pursuits whilst cultivating the emotional intelligence competencies that sit within them, they will support you to develop and create greater intimacy with yourself; to get clear about what matters most to you; to build connection and greater intimacy with others; and to contribute to the world in ways that you care deeply about.
 
It will in short make a significant difference to your emotional maturity and your capacity to cope, connect, create and contribute in ways that matter most to you, and the people you care deeply for.

References

Colman, A. 2008, A Dictionary of Psychology, Oxford University Press, Great Britain.
Drake, D. 2018, Narrative Coaching – The Definitive Guide to Bringing New Stories to Life, CNC press, Petaluma, California.
Drake. D. 2022, Increasing Clients’ Narrative Maturity, Narrative Coaching Course, The Moment Institute.
Goleman, D. 1996, Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, Great Britain.
Six Seconds Intelligence Network, 2024, SEI -LTC – Emotional Intelligence Assessment- Leading People Through Change, USA.
Wikipedia, 2024, Emotional intelligence - Wikipedia
​