The Importance of Maturity

What an exciting week this has been delivering my Mental Resilience Masterclass to the staff of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe on behalf of Live and Learn and another Masterclass to the staff at Derby College. Both sessions were wonderful with great staff and excellent feedback from both.

I met up with Anthony Long the managing partner of Taylor and Emmet solicitors a large law firm in South Yorkshire. I have known Anthony for a number of years, and I’ve delivered some sessions to his staff in Sheffield. It is always great to meet up with him as we always leave energised and inspired.

It was nice to finish the week speaking with Dennis O’Connor the MD of HPC Group in Dublin. It was good to discuss the upcoming trip to Ireland where I am delivering a couple of Mental Resilience sessions. It’s very exciting to be going back to Ireland to see more of the country and to see Dennis again.

I came across this article in Word for Today about maturity and it made me realise how important developing maturity is to live a happy content life:

The Importance of Maturity

“Maturity is the ability to control your anger and settle your differences without violence or resentment. Maturity is patience; it’s the willingness to pass up short-term pleasure for long-term gain. It’s the ability to “sweat it out” in spite of heavy opposition or discouraging setbacks.

It’s the capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration without complaining or collapsing. Maturity is humility. It’s being big enough to say, “I was wrong,” and when you are right, never needing to say, “I told you so.”

Maturity is the ability to make a decision and follow through with it instead of exploring endless possibilities and doing nothing about any of them. Maturity means dependability, keeping your word, and coming through in a crisis.

The immature are masters of alibi; they’re the confused and the disorganised. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business, and good intentions.

Maturity is the art of being at peace with what you can’t change, having the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The Chimp Paradox

Dr Steve Peters wrote a great book about the mind and how it works called the Chimp Paradox. In this book he describes how our ‘emotions’ are the lazy and immature part of us and he calls these emotions our ‘Inner Chimp’.

Our Chimp is always lazy, doesn’t want to work hard, prefers chocolate to healthy food, will always do the easy things first and always wants the pleasure first then the pain. It will lose its temper, give up easily and will break promises.

Maturity is the opposite of the Chimp it’s doing the tough stuff first, it’s controlling anger, it’s going the extra mile and admitting wrongdoings. It’s being at peace and content and it’s doing the right thing without complaining.

Developing maturity is an important task in life and comes over time. The sooner we develop maturity the sooner we will start living a happier more fulfilled and content life.

Thoughts for the week.

1. How is your Inner Chimp?
2. Do you recognise any of the things identified in this article which indicate your Chimp being present?
3. This week try to stay calm in situations which normally create an emotional response.
4. Read again the piece on maturity and make a conscious effort this week to show maturity in all these areas.

Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and stay positive.

Warmest regards

John

Off the Wall – How to Develop World Class Mental Resilience available HERE
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