Maturity, Vital to Personal Growth
Launch Self Improvement from Third Stage of Self Help Growth Plan
The third stage of a seven-stage personal development plan is emotional and mental maturity.
In the Seven Stage Personal Growth Plan, stage three is an important launching pad for rapid personal growth and development. This stage of personal growth involves becoming emotionally and mentally mature. The mature adult is internally motivated, is responsible, and generally self-sufficient. This stage is critical in establishing a platform for taking full responsibility for self and minimizing the tendency to blame others for one's situation. With personal maturity in place, one is positioned to reach out to others from a position of strength and giving, rather than from needs.
For reference, the reader may want to refer to the first two stages, Healing and Foundation.
What Is Maturity?
A dictionary definition of "fully developed" is inadequate for this purpose. The maturity critical to personal growth and development is emotional and mental maturity, which literally continues to evolve until death. For the purpose of this personal growth planning model, maturity is the threshold of fully functioning adulthood, which encompasses personal responsibility and competency for self.
Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.~ Woody Allen
The Maryland Institute describes maturity as "the ability to experience and understand our own deepest feelings and needs, and to be able to act on and express these feelings and needs in appropriate and constructive ways."
Internal Motivation
A sure sign of maturity at any age is internal motivation. The very young generally require high levels of external direction. Parents and teachers provide direction, instruction, and an overall structure to young lives. As people grow older and more experienced they tend to take over more and more of their own life direction. The self motivated person seeks out areas of growth and eagerly accepts growth and development challenges.
Responsible and Accountable
The mature person is responsible and accountable. A mature person recognizes the role they play in life development, taking full responsibility for past and current life experiences and recognizing that the future will unfold along the path of one's personal choices.
"We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice -- that is, until we stop saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it." ~Sydney J. Harris
The Maryland Institute describes it this way: "the willingness and ability to be responsible and accountable for our own circumstances and actions in life, and the ability to differentiate our responsibilities from those of others."
Self Sufficient
The mature person requires no outside direction in providing for the basic human needs of food, shelter, and clothing. Though self sufficient in dealing with the basics of life and the normal life circumstances that arise, the self sufficient person is positioned to seek outside involvement and guidance in the next stage of growth - Expansion.
Expansion
Progressing through Healing, Foundation, and Maturity, the next stage of a Seven Stage Personal Growth Plan is Expansion.
