A Thought on Heart and Brain

I saw this picture on LinkedIn the other day and got curious on what is was about. Turned out it wasn’t what I was expecting so I thought I’d share a feeling.

The dichotomy between heart and brain overlaps our careers and is present in many aspects of life. But assuming our jobs should be a significant part of our life in terms of personal fulfillment, it’s a fundamental aspect to reflect on at work.

To me, it’s clear that the more we learn how to pay attention to our heart/self, the easier it becomes to “listen” to it. Sometimes heart and brain are well aligned and it’s simple to follow both. But in most big decisions, the battle of “whom to listen” happens.

The thing is there is no other way but to follow the heart. Because “following the heart” doesn’t mean ignoring the brain, it’s more of listening to our intuition - a well combined mix of sensations, feelings and experiences that we don’t even recognize clearly. Deep down we know what’s good for us.

If you think about it, it makes sense that happiness will come from taking on jobs/projects/opportunities that are aligned with how your self feels. And that’s exactly where you’ll excel and succeed. It might take a while, but in the long term, anything that goes against your heart will exhaust and defeat you.  

It’s not always easy and in fact it’s hard most of the times, but start paying attention and trust the journey. We don’t want “the easy” anyway ;) Practice makes perfect and little by little we can get closer to truly shinning ourselves.