In this episode of the Merkol Podcast, we analyze the motivational Soorarai Pottru Quote, which is a Tamil movie starring Suriya in the lead role. This is actually a lyric from the song, ‘Aagasam’, which goes:
“Enga irukku da thooram, kitta poga poga adhu maarum”
Arunraja Kamaraj
This can be loosely translated to English like, “How far can something be? It gets closer as you move towards it”
In this post you will find
Understanding why Procrastination kills dreams
Everyone talks a big game but most don’t have the actions to back up their words. Some criticize others for failing in a business venture but in reality, they are scared to even draw up a business plan.
Imagine you want to do something, like start a blog. You begin to think that you would need hosting, a website design and you start to wonder what sort of content you will have on your blog and all this overwhelms you. Finally, you end up not starting it at all.
Your fear leads to procrastination and that kills your inspiration. The fear only eases when you start doing it, then you will move closer and closer to your goal.
There are many others who do the hard work of writing the post or recording a podcast, but they are still in the drafts as they think they can do better. Once you start judging your own content, you will never post it. People start worrying about criticism from others and they never showcase their content to the world.
Make one thing clear in your mind – you will never feel ready.
You are never ready – and that is fine
You will never feel ready before you set out to do something and that is completely fine. Even if you are fully prepared and have done your homework for nearly 6 months before you do something, you will still feel that you may need to do more work.
You get the feeling that if you prepare a little bit more then you would feel ready. But in reality, you will never feel ready until you actually start doing something.
You putting off starting something, is just your way of procrastinating and I am sure as hell that procrastination kills dreams. Because you will end up being in the same place even if you have prepared for 10 years and still would not start anything. All you need to do is start.
This was perfectly portrayed in the movie, A Most Violent Year, by Oscar Isaac playing the role of Abel Morales. It goes:
When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump, otherwise you end up staying in the same place your whole life, and that I can’t do.
Oscar Isaac as Abel Morales – A Most Violent Year
Another amazing movie scene portraying that fear leads to procrastination is from the movie Fight Club.
Tyler Durden waltz into a convenience store and has the cashier on his knees at gunpoint. He asks him what he wants to do, he says that he wants to become a veterinarian doctor and that he is not pursuing it because it requires too much schooling.
Tyler then asks him the world’s best question: ‘Would you rather die at the back of a convenience store?’
Swap that question with whatever is holding you back.
‘Would you rather die working at your dead-end desk job that pays for your IKEA furniture and expensive brunches than start a blog that you always wanted to start?’
‘Would you rather die working at McDonald’s that pays for your beer every day than start that podcast?’
Here is the scene:
Personal example:
Take this Merkol podcast for example. I was also worried about what people would think before I actually released my first episode. I re-did the first episode as I was not happy with it nearly 6 times.
After the third time, it did not get any better. All I was doing was putting away starting a podcast with rubbish reasons that made sense to me then but sound foolish now. Reasons like ‘would people like it?’ you would not know unless you publish it, ‘my voice sounds weird’ your voice doesn’t matter, your content does.
And many more reasons.
I was scared before I published the first episode but there really could be no other person happier than me the second I published it.
So stop worrying about things not in your control and like Nike says, ‘Just Do It’.
Closing:
If you keep thinking about the amount of work that is ahead of you then you will miss out on the joy of actually doing the work.
This is perfectly summed up in the Soorarai Pottru quote/lyric, how much ever far you feel something is, it only feels far if you don’t work on it. The minute you start working towards your goal, it starts to get closer and closer.
Podcast:
I have recorded a podcast on the same quote. But it is in Tamil. If you know the language then please do listen to this. Do let me know if you like it. Here is the link:
