If you have ever found yourself embarrassed by a gut reaction or dealing with the aftermath of an emotional outburst, then you may be wondering if it is possible to improve on your emotional maturity. Anything is possible, but that does not mean that it is an easy task to accomplish. Improving emotional maturity is a task that is not easy to accomplish. Most people need time and life experience to develop emotional maturity. Still, with the goal in mind and the tools to accomplish it, improving emotional maturity can be done.

Read on to learn about five steps to improve your emotional maturity.

Set and Keep Healthy Boundaries

Setting boundaries is not hard. Keeping those boundaries seems nearly impossible at times.

However, building emotional maturity means that boundaries must be kept. You are going to have to decide what behavior you are and are not willing to accept in your life. Stick to those decisions and you will be just fine.

Practice in the Workplace

You know how the saying goes “practice makes perfect.” I truly believe that this can be applied to just about any concept in the world. Lucky for you, the workplace is a great setting for practicing emotional maturity. It is almost fool-proof. The workplace is already set up to be a professional setting, you are used to handling yourself in a certain way. The next time you face a challenge at work, try to reflect on why you handle it the way you do, then apply those same principles to challenges outside of the workplace.

Evaluate Your Friends

You cannot control your friends, and you should not try. However, you can control which friends you choose to play a major role in your life.

The simple fact of the matter is that “you are what you eat” to call on an old cliché. If you surround yourself with emotional immaturity in the form of your friends then you will likely remain emotionally immature yourself. This does not mean that you have to cut emotionally immature friends completely from your life. Simply cutting down on the time you spend with them, even if temporarily, can help you to mature on your own. In time, they will likely mature too and your lives can meet back up when you are both in the same place emotionally. On another note, refrain from jumping headfirst into romantic relationships. Set clear boundaries and expectations for your dating life. If you find someone you think you like take time to get to know them before getting serious.

Being intentional in your romantic encounters is a wonderful sign of emotional maturity.

Learn to Count to Ten

Your reaction to negative situations is the biggest factor in how others perceive your emotional maturity. If you are quick to anger then you will likely be viewed as emotionally immature.

Learning to count to ten before you respond to tricky situations can give you time to think of how you would like to respond and save you from an embarrassing display of behavior. The delay allows you to formulate a response and maintain control of your reputation.

Give it Time

The biggest factor in emotional maturity is by far time. You need time to have enough life experiences to mature you. You need time to gain the reflection and wisdom to have emotional maturity. It is honorable to seek self-improvement, but it also okay to act age appropriately!

Remember, there will come a time for everything and do not try to rush yourself too much, stop and enjoy the process along the way.