Maturity is the state of being grown.
Adulthood is often associated with maturity, but truthfully, being grown is not compulsorily an age thing.
Maturity is a mental disposition.
You don’t have to necessarily be a certain age to be mature, and being at a certain age does not automatically qualify you as a mature person.
It’s about who you are on the inside, how you think, and act, and how you handle life and life issues.
No one can fake maturity, or fake it for long. It is an attribute that stems from the deep roots of being.
If you are not mature, you are not mature.
Maturity is more about who you are. Because what you do comes from who you are.
What you do, how you think and act all come from who you are as a person.
This article explains and describes some of the traits and qualities that depict maturity in a person.
18 SIGNS OF A MATURE PERSON
1. You take responsibility for your life
Responsibility is one of the most distinguishing factors of maturity.
You cannot say that you are mature until you understand that you are totally responsible for your life and act accordingly.
Mature people take charge and control of their life.
They are accountable to themselves for the outcome of their lives.
While they don’t resist outside help, they take responsibility for the major bulk of the workload of how their lives turn out.
Responsibility and accountability are major traits of maturity in a person.
2. You know what you want
Knowing what you want generally and specifically is another sign of maturity.
What it says about you is that you know who you are and you understand yourself.
Self-knowledge is the most substantial and most profitable knowledge anyone can have.
It sets the course for all other forms of knowledge.
People who can express what they want (out of life) and in any situation are regarded as grown.
There are certain things you cannot begin to reach for in life until you understand what you really want.
As a mature person, knowing what you want affects your life in the following ways:
Goals are easier to set and reach
Clarity around life issues
Discipline is easier to attain
Less struggle for drive, motivation and ambition
Better decision-making abilities
3. You know what you don’t want
Just as knowing what you want shows that you are a mature person, knowing what you don’t want does the same.
Life is about balance.
Both attributes balance each other, and both reflect maturity.
Knowing what you don’t want will dictate what not to do so as to avoid undesirable circumstances.
Knowing what you don’t want (both specifically and generally) and in situations is one of the major pillars of maturity.
4. You are selective of your associations/relationships
One of the most outstanding and undeniable traits of a mature person is their selectivity when it comes to relationships.
Mature people understand that they have no say in picking their blood-related family.
As the saying goes, you don’t choose your family.
But for other kinds of relationships, they have more than a say.
They are free to choose. And choose wisely, they do.
Your choice in relationships, associations, squad or circle will either make or break you.
There are a lot of benefits to reap from the right associations, and also numerous damages to be incurred from the wrong ones.
Choosing right will absolutely help your life and your journey.
While no one is an island, and you will definitely interact with the other humans who surround you in your corner of the universe, it is entirely up to you to choose who you let into your life and intimate space.
Mature people pick the right caliber of people to associate with in all areas, spheres, and ramifications of life.
They understand that their association reflects a lot about them.
As the other saying goes, Show me who your friends and I will tell you who you are and who you will be.
5. You own up to your mistakes instead of blaming others for them
No matter how wise and intelligent a person is, errors are bound to occur.
The state of being human eradicates perfection.
Mistakes will come up here and there, in circumstances and situations.
Maturity is accepting your wrongs, instead of pawning off the blame on others.
Owning up and seeking to correct mistakes is one of the signs of a mature person.
6. You don’t seek approval or validation from every Tom, Dick and Harry
Mature people are self-assured.
While they know that external approval and validation are fine, it is not the basis of their self-confidence.
They are secure within themselves.
They approve and validate themselves of their own worth first.
Any other recognition is a plus, not the foundation.
So, they don’t go about searching or soliciting such from people other than themselves.
Nothing about their actions and lifestyle suggest that they are desperate for approval besides the one that comes from within them.
That is one of the core fundamentals of maturity.
They first of all appreciate themselves and their own worth by themselves.
They find satisfaction in recognizing their own worth all by themselves.
Self-acceptance, regard for one’s worth, self-love, self-respect, and self-importance are the true hallmarks and some of the measures of maturity in an individual.
7. You exercise self-control
One cannot claim to be mature until a substantial amount of self-control is ingrained in one’s being.
Self-control is the seal that holds other attributes of maturity.
Without self-control, maturity is just a façade, a wash, a mirage.
Self-control is the ability to inhibit and restraint one’s own impulses and emotions.
It is self-restraint, discipline, determination, willpower and inhibitions.
Those stated qualities are required to live an utterly fulfilling life in all ramifications.
Without the ability to control and regulate oneself, one would live a reckless life.
And recklessness isn’t one of the signs of maturity.
8. You don’t live for the moment (you consider the future)
A large part of being mature is considering the future consequences of each action.
Mature people don’t live for the moment, they take the future into consideration.
No other set of people understand and grasp the concept of instant gratification like mature people. Because they don’t indulge in it.
They know that actions have consequences, and whatever they do in the present, negative or positive, will reflect on the future.
Living for the moment without taking into account of how each action affects the future will never be attributed to mature people.
They consider the future in everything they do.
9. You don’t sweat the small stuff
Mature people don’t sweat the small stuff; that is, they don’t get upset, stress or worry about minor things that have no effect on real issues.
Maturity is sustaining the internal and mental stamina enough to stop oneself from going off or stressing about matters of little or no weight.
10. You manage your time wisely
It is often said that whatever has your time has your life.
No saying could be truer.
What you value can be known from what you spend your time on.
Time is the most important asset in life.
Everyone on the planet is allocated the same 24hours per day.
How you spend yours reveals your level of maturity.
Time is the one resource that is common to every individual. Mature people apply wisdom in the management of their time.
What you spend time on forms your habits and experiences, influences your circumstances, and in the long run, affect the total outcome of your life.
Time, is after all, money.
Mature people spend their time on activities that positively affect, upgrade and elevate their lives.
11. You are protective of your peace
Mature people are people who are at peace with themselves, their circumstances and the people in their lives.
Maturity is being protective of one’s peace.
Peace is the most priceless commodity anyone can have.
When peace is present, every other aspect of life flows effortlessly.
Peace is characterized by calm, serenity, tranquility, harmony, order and rest.
It is not the absence of conflict or unrest, but the ability to manage and regulate both internal and external order.
It takes maturity to maintain peace in one’s life.
12. You consider the consequences of your actions before you take them
It is a universal and indisputable law that actions will always have consequences.
No one can escape the results of their deeds, negative or positive, directly or indirectly.
As a mature person, you are aware that, in most instances, your actions will not only affect you, but other people as well.
So, you take into account the resultant effects of each action.
Thoughtful deeds are traits of mature people.
13. You don’t gossip others
Gossip is harmful, both to the peddler and the victim.
It damages the reputation and image of everyone involved.
Regular, idle or unintentional, revealing and spreading horrible and distasteful information, true or not, will never be considered fashionable or good behavior.
It is lazy, childish and bad character to gossip others.
There are certain situations in which mature people will never be caught.
Gossip is one of them.
14. You learn from experience
Mature people learn from experience. Not just their own experience, but other people’s experiences as well.
They study past occurrences to gain understanding.
Also, they do not just learn from experiences just because. They lift the ‘’appropriate’’ wisdom and gleam the proper lessons from every experience they come across, be it theirs or others.
They also know which experience to discard if it does not apply to them.
15. You learn from others’ experiences
As stated above, mature people not only learn from their experiences, but also from other people’s experiences.
Not all experiences are applicable, so they have sustained the understanding to know which experiences to learn from and how to learn from such.
They observe events in order to gain applicable knowledge.
16. You seek counsel from the right sources before making decisions
Mature people are characterized by an impeccable sense of judgment which they apply when it comes to making decisions.
A person’s life is the sum total of decisions they make over time.
Your decisions will either make or mar you.
Much more important than the decisions are the sources that contribute.
Maturity is seeking out the appropriate sources before making conclusions.
Mature people don’t think they know it all.
Foolishness is thinking you know it all and don’t need other people’s input.
17. You think before you talk
Thoughts are invisible, a person’s utterances reveal who they are.
Mature people are not people of thoughtless speech.
Words, once spoken, can never be regained.
So, mature think before they talk. They don’t talk anyhow.
18. You fulfill your responsibilities e.g. as an employee, parent, spouse etc
Mature people are dependable and reliable.
They don’t run from their duties and responsibilities, and they certainly do not shirk them.
They show up and come through as and when needed.
Maturity is characterized by a sense of duty.
Be it as an employee, parent, friend or sibling, or whatever space they occupy, mature people take care of their duties, big and small.
Maturity, in its simplest explanation, is wisdom.
Maturity is a continuous state of being.
You will never get to a stage or point in life where you are done being mature.
You cannot use up all of your wisdom.
Like a muscle, the more you choose to apply wisdom in all of life’s dealings, the wiser you become.
