I like people to be happy. Not in a creepy Richard Simmonds kind of a way; it’s more of a Lisa Simpson or Oprah kind of thing.

Sometimes I might go out of my way to please someone, put a smile on someone’s face or help them out with a problem. Does that make me a people pleaser? In her article “8 Tips to Reverse Over-Pleaser’s Syndrome“, executive coach Suzy Girard-Ruttenberg got me thinking as to my motivations and made me question whether I am, in fact, suffering from Over-Pleaser Syndrome.

I want to give people a good experience of me. What does no good to anyone – and specifically, me – is going around giving people a bad experience of what it’s like to be around me. I could go around and snap at people, be an energy vampire who leaves people drawn and withered or be as self-obsessed as Paris Hilton at a group therapy meeting for shoe-addicts.

So yes, I want people to have a good experience of me. I want people to experience me at my best. The thing is that sometimes that means I miss out on something because I’m spending more time and energy with someone else than I counted on.

Just yesterday, in my new freelance gig in London, a couple of pieces of work hit the rails, skidded down a muddy bank and rammed into a tree. I spent all day helping two very capable colleagues solve the problem, doing whatever I could to give them what they needed to find the right solutions.

I took it on myself to help them, support them and create a space where they could work on the answers. As a result I had no time to make a couple of key phone calls that would start the ball rolling to getting me work in New York City next year. I had no time to call my broadband supplier, who’ve failed to get my broadband back up and running for the last 6 days (grrrrr). I had no time to call my friend Zoe about hooking up for a glass of wine over the weekend. And I had no time for the nice lunch I had planned.

Yes, as a Producer part of my job is to provide an environment where people can do their best work, but I didn’t spot a couple of things and felt like I had to facilitate the solutions.

Does that mean I’m suffering from OPS?

Suzy Girard-Ruttenberg might think so, as she describes it as leading to “weaker bottom lines, withering work schedules and advanced No-Life Disorder.”

But I don’t believe it does.

I knew what I was doing, you see. I made some conscious decisions that lead to the course of action that I took. And yes, that course of action meant that I had to change my plans and didn’t get to the things I wanted to. But what’s interesting is that I felt good when I left the office, like I’d been at my best and done some damn good work.

There’s a difference – a bloody great big difference, as big as a Big Thing in a Big Contest on Big Day in Bigsville – between making a deliberate choice based on a frank awareness of the situation and suffering from OPS.

I’ve worked with a whole load of people who’ve been habitual over-pleasers. It renders them exhausted but forces them to keep on running, it makes them chase more pleased expressions at the expense of their own.

Over-pleasers aren’t fully aware of the impact of their decisions. They’re not aware of this simple equation –

Whatever you say “Yes” to, means that you’re saying “No” to something else

Over-pleasers experience a pay-off in pleasing others and so their sub-conscious makes the choice to over-please people in an effort to get more of that pay-off. It’s not a decision based on a frank awareness of the situation or the Yes/No equation, and the pay-off in over-pleasing is no match for the hit your confidence and self-esteem will take.

It’s okay to please people, as long as it’s a conscious, deliberate choice, and in my experience it adds to your self-esteem to do that.

How does the the ‘Yes/No/ equation work in your own life? Are you an over-pleaser? And how is all of this affecting your confidence and self-esteem?