Waiting is a Business Trip to Irrelevance: Why Stubborn Action Trumps Perfect Timing (and Every Other Excuse)
Here’s a truth that’ll make you uncomfortable: while you’re waiting for the “right moment”, someone else is building the future you were supposed to create.
They’re not more intelligent than you (intelligence is subjective).
They don’t have better resources (more or infinite).
They certainly don’t have perfect conditions (I wouldn’t comment on it).
BUT! There is one important but…
They’ve decided that imperfect action beats ideal planning every single time.
And now they’re eating your lunch while you’re still reading the menu.
A big difference.
The Mythology of Perfect Timing (And Why It’s Killing Your Business)
Let’s talk about the convenient lie we tell ourselves—the one about timing. You know the story: “I’m waiting for the market to settle,” “I need more data before I decide,” “Let me just get one more certification,” “The economy isn’t quite right yet.”
It’s all wonderfully rational-sounding nonsense.
Here’s what’s really happening: You’re manufacturing excuses with the precision of a German engineering firm. You’ve become an excuse artisan, crafting perfectly reasonable-sounding justifications for inaction. The irony? You’re working harder to avoid work than the work itself would require.
The market will never “settle.” Data will never be “complete.” You’ll never feel “ready.” These aren’t actual conditions—they’re psychological security blankets you’re clutching while the world sprints past you.
The uncomfortable reality:
Perfect timing is a myth perpetuated by people who need to explain their inaction retroactively. When successful entrepreneurs talk about “perfect timing,” they’re engaging in historical fiction—rewriting their messy, terrified leaps into calculated strategic moves.
The Mathematics of Waiting (Spoiler: The Numbers Hate You)
Let me introduce you to the most terrifying equation in business:
*Opportunity Cost of Delay =
(Market Value × Time Lost) + (Competitive Advantage Surrendered) + (Momentum Never Built)
Every day you wait, you’re not just standing still—you’re actively moving backward. While you’re “preparing,” your would-be competitors are learning by doing. They’re making mistakes, sure. But here’s the kicker: those mistakes are teaching them lessons you’ll need to learn eventually anyway. They’re just getting their education at a discount.
Consider this: If you wait six months to launch your idea because you want it “perfect,” and your competitor launches something 80% as good next week, guess who wins? Not you, despite your superior execution. Because they’ll have six months of:
- Customer feedback is refining their offering
- Market presence is building their brand
- Revenue funds their improvements
- Momentum creating opportunities
Meanwhile, you’ll have six months of theoretical perfection that the market doesn’t care about.
Launching An Idea @ 85% Readiness
The market doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards presence. It rewards those who show up, ship something, and iterate based on reality rather than imagination.
The Stubborn Action Manifesto
Here’s what stubborn action looks like—and why it works when everything else fails:
- Stubborn action means shipping before you’re ready. Not recklessly. Not carelessly. But before you feel “ready.” Because if you wait until you feel ready, you’ve waited too long. The feeling of readiness is a trap—it’s your brain’s way of protecting you from the vulnerability of putting your work into the world.Ship it messy. Ship it incomplete. Ship it with the gaps you know about and the ones you don’t. Then fix it in public. The shame you fear from shipping something imperfect? It’s nothing compared to the shame of having never shipped at all.
- Stubborn action means committing before you have permission. Nobody is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “You’re ready now.” No authority will descend from the heavens to validate your ideas. Permission is something you take, not something you’re given.Are entrepreneurs changing industries right now? They didn’t wait for permission. They created something the market didn’t know it needed, in ways that existing players said couldn’t be done. They were stubborn enough to ignore the chorus of “no” until their results made the objections irrelevant.
- Stubborn action means deciding once, then executing relentlessly. Analysis paralysis isn’t a thinking problem—it’s a decision problem. You keep “analysing” because you haven’t actually decided. And you haven’t agreed because you’re hoping more data will eliminate the risk.
Spoiler: It won’t.
Make the decision. Choose a direction. Then be stubborn about execution. The magic isn’t in making the perfect choice—it’s in making a choice, then making it right through sheer determination.
“Your competitors aren’t smarter, better funded, or luckier. They just understand that imperfect action today creates perfect opportunities tomorrow—while your perfect plan creates nothing but regret.”
I’d like you to consider the following model – nothing complex, but simple and very effective.
One step at a time, from foundations to multiplications
Deconstructing Your Favourite Excuses
Let’s address the greatest hits of entrepreneurial procrastination:
“I need more money/resources/time.”
No, you need more creativity & decisiveness. If you look back historically, some of the most transformative businesses started with nothing but stubborn belief and a willingness to figure it out (from comfy garages). Resources are a result of momentum, not a prerequisite for it. Resourcefulness is what wins the game in your favour. Start with what you have, or you’ll never start at all. It’s not harsh; at least you will begin to adjust as you go along.
“The market isn’t ready for this.”
Translation: “I’m scared the market will reject this, and I need a way to reject it first so it doesn’t hurt as much.” The market is never “ready” for real innovation. It doesn’t know what it wants until someone shows it. Your job isn’t to wait for readiness—it’s to create it.
“I need to learn more first.”
You’re confusing learning with hiding. Real learning happens through doing, not through consuming more courses, books, or certifications. You already know enough to start. The only question is whether you’re brave enough to discover what you don’t know through action.
“This isn’t the right time in my life.”
The timing is never perfect. There is no right time. There’s only one time that’s passing, whether you use it or not. Your circumstances will never align perfectly. Your calendar will never clear magically. If I can’t handle it now and at this level, how would I wrestle with much bigger and more complex challenges? Waiting for life to be less complicated is like waiting for traffic to disappear—it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world works. The only thing you need to know at this stage is that our (your and mine) time is limited, and every delay or complication is taking that scarce resource from us.
The Cost of Hesitation: What You’re Really Losing
Every moment of hesitation costs you something concrete:
The market position that could have been yours goes to someone who acted on it or shipped first. First-mover advantage is real, but it doesn’t go to the first person who had the idea—it goes to the first person who shipped it.
Learning opportunities arising from real market interaction are often deferred indefinitely. The market is the only teacher that matters, and it only teaches those who show up for class.
Momentum and credibility built with each iteration remain theoretical forever. Trust is earned through consistent presence, not sudden perfection.
Team members and partnerships that would have formed around your moving project go elsewhere. Talented people want to work on things that are happening, not things that might happen someday.
Most devastatingly, the person you could have become through the struggle remains hypothetical. The entrepreneur who emerges from launching, failing, learning, and iterating is categorically different from the one who stays in planning mode. The version of yourself that could have been forged through action never gets created.
The Path Forward: Making Stubborn Action Your Default
Here’s your uncomfortable assignment:
This week—not next month, not after you’ve “prepared more”—this week:
- Identify the one action you’ve been postponing because conditions aren’t “right”
- Strip it down to the minimum viable version
- Ship it, launch it, start it, or do it
- Commit to iteration based on honest feedback, not imagined concerns
And here’s the critical part: Do it badly. Do it imperfectly. Do it scared. But do it now.
The market doesn’t reward perfect timing. It rewards stubborn presence. It rewards those who ship despite uncertainty, who commit despite fear, who act despite imperfect conditions.
The Final Truth
Your competitors aren’t waiting; they are strategising.
The market isn’t waiting; it is adjusting and repositioning.
Time certainly isn’t waiting; your minutes are disappearing.
The only person waiting is you—and with each passing day, you’re not preserving opportunities for better circumstances.
You’re surrendering them to people who understand that imperfect action creates perfect opportunities.
The future belongs to those who are stubborn enough to start before they’re ready, relentless sufficient to continue when it’s hard, and brave enough to ship despite uncertainty.
Everything else—your planning, your preparation, your perfect timing—is just a sophisticated form of hiding.
Stop hiding. Start shipping. Be stubborn about it.
Because waiting isn’t strategic—it’s surrender in slow motion.
“Waiting isn’t strategic planning—it’s surrender in slow motion. While you’re polishing your plan, someone with a messier version is already winning your customers.”
The question isn’t whether you’ll eventually take action. It’s whether you’ll take it while there’s still an opportunity to matter, or whether you’ll take it too late and spend the rest of your career explaining what you could have done if only the timing had been better.
Spoiler alert: The timing will never be better than right now. It will only be later—and later has a nasty habit of becoming never.
Your move.
For more details how we can help you and your business, contact our team at Effecta Consulting.