It’s easy to give away too much in life.
We all know this because we’ve been there. We’ve given away our money, our time, and our emotions to achieve something we thought was important.
But what do you do when you don’t get anything in return?
You become bitter, resentful, and trapped in a cycle of negative thinking. Here are 18 signs that you’re giving too much and getting nothing in return.
1) You’re always making excuses for your partner
You know you’re doing wrong, but you can’t stop.
You’re always making excuses for your partner, telling yourself that they’re not the problem and it’s all your fault.
But this is a self-fulfilling prophecy because you won’t progress in life until you stop making excuses to hide someone else’s bad behavior.
2) You’re constantly second-guessing every decision you make.
This is a sign that you don’t trust yourself to make good decisions on your own.
Maybe because you’ve been taken for a ride one too many times.
Instead of trusting yourself, you need someone else to tell you what to do and how to do it—that way if it doesn’t work out, at least they get the blame!
You don’t feel comfortable to
3) You feel like you’re being controlled.
You feel like someone else is in control of your life, and you’re just along for the ride.
You’re not in control of your life, but you let someone else be in charge.
You feel helpless and like you don’t have anything to do or control in your life.
You let someone else take the lead, and you don’t even know what they’re doing.
It could be that you’ve given so much that it’s become almost normal to get anything back.
So if you feel like you’re a puppet on a string, it could signal that you’ve been accustomed to being taken advantage of.
So what can you do about it?
So how do you stop feeling like someone else is pulling the strings?
Begin with yourself. Stop searching for external fixes to sort out your life, deep down, you know this isn’t working.
And that’s because until you look within and unleash your personal power, you’ll never find the satisfaction and fulfillment you’re searching for.
I learned this from the shaman Rudá Iandê. His life mission is to help people restore balance to their lives and unlock their creativity and potential. He has an incredible approach that combines ancient shamanic techniques with a modern-day twist.
In his excellent free video, Rudá explains effective methods to achieve what you want in life and can help you to learn how not to be taken advantage of ever again.
So if you want to build a better relationship with yourself, unlock your endless potential, and put passion at the heart of everything you do, start now by checking out his genuine advice.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
4) You put your needs last.
If you’re always putting your needs last, then it’s a sign that you’re constantly taking care of others at the expense of your own needs.
You’re not happy with how things are going, but you don’t want to rock the boat and upset everyone.
You’re always trying to make everyone else happy instead of making yourself happy—and it shows in the way that you dress, how much you eat, how often you exercise, how much money you spend, how much sleep you get every night, etc.
5) You spend more time and energy on your partner than you do on yourself.
You’re always putting your partner first, even if they don’t deserve it or ask for it.
You feel like you have to take care of them because they’re always taking care of you.(even if they don’t)
You might feel like if you drop the ball, they’ll be out the door and will leave you.
This causes you to overcompensate and you end up with the short end of the stick most often.
6) You’re constantly blaming others for your problems.
You’re always blaming someone else for the things that are happening in your life.
It’s almost like you’re giving them a pass on their bad behavior and not holding them accountable for it.
Maybe it’s time to start holding yourself accountable for what you’ve been doing wrong, instead of blaming everyone else for your problems!
You might need to do some soul searching to realize that by giving your all to people who don’t necessarily deserve it, you’re part of the problem.
7) You’ve become a victim of your own emotions.
Do you constantly feel like life is full of negative vibes?
If so, then it’s time to stop allowing others to treat you like rubbish and move on in life by learning how to control your emotions instead of letting them control you!
Maybe it’s time to start practicing some self-love and self-care.
Letting those feelings out can be hard, especially if you’ve spent so long trying to stay in control of them.
If that’s the case, I highly recommend watching this free breathwork video, created by the shaman, Rudá Iandê.
Rudá isn’t another self-professed life coach. Through shamanism and his own life journey, he’s created a modern-day twist to ancient healing techniques.
The exercises in his invigorating video combine years of breathwork experience and ancient shamanic beliefs, designed to help you relax and check in with your body and soul.
After many years of suppressing my emotions, Rudá’s dynamic breathwork flow quite literally revived that connection.
And that’s what you need:
A spark to reconnect you with your feelings so that you can begin focusing on the most important relationship of all – the one you have with yourself.
So if you’re ready to take back control over your mind, body, and soul, if you’re ready to say goodbye to anxiety and stress, check out his genuine advice below.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
8) You feel like an imposter!
When you think about yourself, do you feel like there’s something missing?
Like you don’t have any value or purpose in life?
If so, then it could be time to start cultivating some self-love because that’s what will help heal you from all the negative emotions.
Also, you might be struggling with something called imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome is a condition that some people face. It’s a feeling of inadequacy where you feel like you’re not good enough and that everyone else is better than you.
You might have experienced this feeling when you were learning something new or when you were starting your career or education.
You might have also experienced it before when you were younger, especially if you felt like all your efforts weren’t making any difference.
Imposter syndrome can be hard to deal with because it makes us feel anxious and insecure about our abilities.
When we think about ourselves, we start doubting whether we’re capable of doing anything well or if we even have the skills to do anything at all!
And this is where the tendency to give too much to others comes into play. Because we feel like it’s the only thing we have going for us.
9) You’re always feeling like you don’t have enough time to accomplish your goals.
If you’re always running out of time, it could mean that you have too many responsibilities and not enough time to do them all.
It could also mean that you’re not taking care of yourself, which is holding you back in your life!
You are the most important person in your life. Why? If you’re not healthy, happy, or well how do you expect to take care of everyone else?
Somethings gotta give and you need to make time to do the things that you enjoy.
10) Your self-esteem has suffered.
When you don’t feel good about yourself, it can be hard to maintain a positive attitude and attitude towards the world around you.
When that happens, it’s time to start thinking about how you can change your perspective on life and how you can start staying positive in all aspects of your life!
Perhaps you think people use you because you’re useless or because they know that you’re stupid enough to fall for their ploys all the time.
You need to grow a thick skin and learn to stand your ground.
11) You feel like you don’t have any real friends
It’s like everyone always wants something from you and who you are as a human being never seems to be enough.
The people you call “friends” often take advantage of you and you don’t feel like you can trust them to be honest with you.
They’re unreliable and bail and flake on you when you need them most and you’re always disappointed.
Sorry to say it but these are not your friends. They’re parasites and they’re draining the lifeblood from you.
Cut them out of your life, the sooner you do so, the better off you’ll be.
12) You’re afraid of being alone…but yet you’re not happy with the people you’re with…
If you’re afraid of being alone but yet you’re not happy being around certain people, it could be a sign that you’ve settled.
Instead of putting yourself out there and taking risks, you’ve settled into a life that you’re not happy with.
You don’t think you can do better, and therefore you don’t bother to try.
Why, because you’ve lost your self-confidence.
13) You don’t know who you are anymore…
If there are moments where you feel like you don’t have a clue about who you are and what your purpose in life is, it could be a sign that you’ve spent too much time giving to others and too little time getting anything back.
You’ve lost yourself because you’ve forgotten to speak up for yourself. You’ve forgotten to take care of yourself.
14) You feel like your life is so full of drama…and yet you don’t know how to change it…
You are like a dumping ground for everyone else’s drama.
Because you’re so afraid of hurting others’ feelings, you carry on taking on more and more.
Instead of your friends and loved ones taking time out to listen to you, they’re too busy bombarding you with their problems.
At the end of the day, you’re left exhausted by listening to everyone else’s emotional problems and being sucked into their drama that you’ve numb. You have nothing left over for yourself.
Learn how to draw the line and set clear boundaries.
If not for the sake of peace then for the sake of your own mental health.
15) You feel like you’re being ignored!
You might be familiar with the feeling.
You’ve just done a huge favor for someone and they were buttering you up via text messages and calls but now, there’s nothing but radio silence.
They’ve got what they wanted and don’t want to engage with you anymore and shut you out.
This happens a lot to people who tend to give too much.
Why?
Because we’re too soft.
You need to start cutting people off who treat you badly and if you get ignored, people like this should be top of your list.
16) People depend heavily on you
You know the score. A friend asks you a favor, perhaps they ask to borrow money from you.
You might be struggling financially, yet you do your hardest to help them out even though you can’t afford to.
After all, you want them to be happy with you and don’t want to cause waves.
So, you give. You give your very last to help them out.
Flash forward and you ask them for a favor, they come with excuses as to why they can’t help.
If this happens often, it’s a sign that you’re being taken advantage of.
You’re being used and exploited, but you don’t see it.
17) You feel like you’re not good enough for most people at all times.
You don’t feel like you’re good enough for most people at all times—especially when they expect or demand that you be perfect in every way (which is impossible, by the way).
You feel like a failure and a loser who can never measure up to anyone else’s standards, but this is just an excuse to make yourself feel useless.
You need to start waking up and realizing that you are good enough.
You don’t deserve to be treated like this and you need to take action.
18) You’re a serial people pleaser
You always have to be the one to make sure that everyone is happy, and you’re afraid of upsetting anyone or making them angry.
You’re always worried about what other people think and how they’ll react to you, and this means that you spend a lot of time worrying about other people.
For some reason, the word no doesn’t resonate with you, and with that said, you disadvantage yourself in favor of others.
Conclusion
I hope you’ve found this article insightful and helpful.
You might have realized that you tend to give too much to others, but also too little to yourself.
You don’t have to change your entire life for this problem to go away.
You can start by making changes in your daily routine and seeing if it helps you feel more balanced in your life.
