Maturity and Success are Correlated

What is maturity? There are many different ways to answer this question, but in this article, maturity means something very specific. We will analyze the difference between a child and an adult to understand what maturity truly entails. Let’s dig deeper. On average, a 7-year-old child knows approximately 3,000 – 7,000 words in their native language, while a 21-year-old adult knows 20,000 – 35,000 words. Another example of maturity is the ability of an adult to sit through an hour of boring content, whereas a child would be unable to tolerate such boredom. Our definition of maturity is simply the growth between point A and point B. Note: Maturity does not solely reference age.

What is success? Once again, this word can have many different meanings depending on who you ask. In this article, success is defined as the ability to achieve goals and accomplishments. For example, success could be as simple as finishing a half marathon or winning a competition. Success is all about completing tasks that are considered achievements.

Maturity and Success – Correlation not causation

Maturity influences success. It doesn’t directly cause success, but it undoubtedly makes the journey towards success smoother and more attainable. To illustrate, you can eat soup without a spoon, but having a spoon would significantly ease the process. Similarly, maturity plays a pivotal role in the path to success. While it’s possible to achieve success without maturity, having maturity simplifies and facilitates the process. Maturity isn’t the cause of success, but it is closely connected, related, and correlated with it. You’ll often find that most successful individuals have also cultivated a sense of maturity along their journey.

How to Use This Knowledge to Become More Successful

If maturity makes success easier, you should strive to become more mature. This makes sense, but where do we begin? First we need to start by identifying the places where maturity differs between the average child and the average adult. We can call these areas “General Maturity”.

Physical Development – Coordination, strength, and speed.
Emotional Development – Emotion Regulation, Understanding Emotion, Empathy, and more.
Cognitive Development – Understanding, Knowledge, Abstract Thinking, and more.
Concentration – Focus, longevity of Concentration, Patience.
Social Development – Communication, Social Dynamics, Understanding relationships.
Experiences – Ability to adapt to new situations.

These are some of the places where you should continue to mature. Just because you’re an adult and more mature than a child doesn’t mean you’re done maturing. You should continue to mature in these areas until you are so good at them that the average adult looks like a child compared to you.

After getting better at general maturity, you’ll want to progress and start improving specific maturity. In simple words, just getting better at the things required to succeed at something. Specific maturity is extremely dependent on what you’re trying to succeed at. For example, if you want to win a golf tournament, you’ll need to mature in different ways than if you want to complete police academy. To find your specific maturity areas, analyze your specific goals and look for the various areas that personal growth would help you. For example, a police officer would need to become calm under pressure, while an attorney may need to develop an eye for detail. Once you find these places to mature, then you should develop these areas.

What is Immaturity?

Most of you probably associate immaturity with something bad. However, I would like to challenge this thought. The reason that immaturity is bad is that it’s often used at the wrong times. What is immaturity? It’s things that children do better than adults. Sometimes, immaturity might actually be something we need to develop to become more successful. Sounds strange, I know. It’s true though. Let’s look at some ways children are better than adults.

Imagination / creativity.
Adaptability.
Inquisitive.
Accepting Help.
Unbiased.
much more..

You should analyze this idea deeper. What can children do easily that most adults struggle to do? Children have a lot of wonderful traits about them, and as we grow older and more rigid, we lose all of these good qualities. By rebuilding these qualities we may find that success becomes easier. For example, an artist may find it very helpful to develop their imagination and creativity. A scholar would find it helpful to develop their inquisitive nature. A judge would benefit from becoming less biased. These are all immature traits, but they can make you very successful. Side note: These qualities are often associated with happiness. Develop your inner child to live a happier life.

The Best of Both Worlds

I am not saying that maturity is better than immaturity. I am not saying that immaturity is better than maturity. I am saying that both have benefits and can contribute to your success. There’s a famous platitude that goes, “Best of both worlds,” and it applies here. Developing both maturity and immaturity and knowing when to utilize each can be advantageous. Analyze your specific goals and determine which areas you should focus on for development. This will aid you in becoming more successful with greater ease. Notice, I did not say it would cause you to be successful, nor did I say it will guarantee success. It will simply make the process much easier.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, this article is effectively about character development. You can learn where to start developing your character through analysis. I hope you can see from this article that character development plays a vital role in success. The better your character, the easier attaining success will be. Character development and success go hand in hand. So, the next time you embark on an achievement, consider the character development that you need to thrive.

Conclusion

Analyze the things that adults do better than children and vice versa. Start developing these areas. If an average adult is better than an average child at something, you should continue developing in this area so that you’re in the top 1% of adults at that thing. If you notice that a child is better at something than an adult, you should develop yourself until you are better than 99% of all children at it. Then you should develop in the specific areas required to achieve your goals. This is how you make achievements easier and how you become successful easier. Maturity and success and related.

Resources

The International Journal of Educational Administration has an article about how social maturity influences academic success.

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