Whether we like it or not, for most of us, many of our decisions are guided by prestige.

This seems spontaneous.

But it has a serious effect on how well we do in our professions but more importantly, on how happy and satisfied we are.

And, it is no way spontaneous but a result of a lot of external factors like what we read, see and who we work with and where we live. Social media is another major external factor.

When prestige becomes the primary motivator our thinking gets clouded but it gets us to do what we don’t want at the core.

As a result, we end up choosing professions, working on projects, and mining and building relationships with people who are not aligned with our natural self.  

This equates to living a fake life with mind and heart in a constant fight. And when we live such a fake life for long, we tend to believe that we like that life, but something feels wrong because our gut is smarter than us.

The final result is an unfulfilling life, and not being able to unleash the talents that are within us.

The tough alternative is to really think about the reasons for what we do and then only going after people and projects when our heads and hearts are aligned.

Hope you’ll spend some time thinking about it.