Awards are nice on a shelf. Impact is what’s still working when the shelf has been cleared out.

Recognition is a snapshot of a moment somebody decided to mark. What you actually changed keeps running afterward, in the people you taught, the thing you built, the habit somebody picked up from you. Those two are not opposed, though they are easy to confuse, and chasing only the first produces work designed to be noticed rather than work that lasts.

Ask what would still be true a year after you left your team or your job. If the answer is nothing, choose one thing to make durable. Build it so that it does not need you.