 Being kind will get you far in life. When you can go beyond the ego, you are able to break free from self-absorbed habits that can damage your health. But swing on the other side to extremes and too much kindness can just be destructive. Family and marriage therapist Darlene Lancer says that people pleasing habits start from your childhood. If you feel like you always had to accommodate to others, it may have stemmed from your parents who withheld love from you, forced impossible expectations on you, and practiced unfair ways of disciplining you. Does this sound like you? Here are five signs you are a people-pleaser. 1. You agree with others because you are afraid of conflict. Do you have different political beliefs from your friends that you keep to yourself, or go along with the family tradition even though you hate it? If you agree with others just for the sake of making others feel happy, consequently you run the risk of making yourself feel uncomfortable. You might end up losing friends when you state your honest opinions or get into domestic quarrels, but this can be beneficial in the long run. You can find out who your true friends are by showing your real self and take an active part in decision-making with your family. Remember, being passive easily results in dissatisfaction when your thoughts aren't being heard, but practicing self-expression helps you feel more self-assured about your values and ideals. 2. Saying no is a challenge for you. Are you constantly busy because you're always taking on more than enough projects? Pause for a second and ask yourself, when was the last time you allowed yourself a good break? It's great helping someone reach their goals and show people you are a reliable worker, friend, and colleague, but your dreams, goals, and health matter too. It doesn't make you a bad person if you want to cancel plans over the weekend or make time to get your own work done first. 3. When you help others out, you feel more resentful than fulfilled. Research shows that practicing compassion can give you a sense of purpose and make you feel more connected to your community. But when you do it to a point where it burns you out, you might want to retreat for a bit and reflect on what's not working. Psychotherapist Sharon Martin advises you to pay attention to whether you are doing things out of true desire or because you feel obligated. 4. You're incredibly hard on yourself. When parents are overbearing and have high demands for you, it puts you at a higher risk of being a people pleaser. Does this sound like you? When you make mistakes, you don't cut yourself slack and strive for perfection instead of progress. Psychologists Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill define perfectionism as an irrational desire to achieve along with being overly critical of oneself and others. When you don't embrace your failures, you will never learn resilience, an essential life skill to have. Practice on your strengths instead and practice mindfulness. 5. You pretend like you're doing alright when you're actually hurting on the inside. When you experience all the previous points mentioned, overextending yourself to others, being hard on yourself and agreeing with others just to avoid conflict, it makes it difficult for people to reach you when you aren't vulnerable enough to state your true feelings. Bottling your emotions up instead of openly talking about them can prevent you from forming authentic connections. Is it really worth keeping everyone happy when this only sustains artificial relationships? Remember this the next time you want to hide your disappointment. When was the last time you did something without feeling the pressure to please? Want to learn how to stop negative thoughts? Check out our video here. Thanks for watching. And I am one of the partners of Psych2Go. Today I'm not only here to introduce myself but to also introduce you guys to our amazing Psych2Go magazines. Don't they look wonderful? These magazines were all created by our amazing and talented magazine manager Eumogen. She put all her time and hard work just to create this for you guys so everyone can have a little piece of Psych2Go wherever you guys are. So we are going to do a little giveaway right now. So we're going to pick three winners. There's no deadline to this at all and all you got to do is three little things, okay? Number one is to follow and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. Number two is either take a picture of, you know, this picture right here, a screenshot or any picture of Psych2Go and hashtag Psych2Go on your social media, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, whatever it is. And number three, we're going to have a link down below of a really short questionnaire for us to connect with you and get to know you guys a little bit more, okay? 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