Do not get it right with Sawan Kumar | Best Career Coach in India

The action over perfection mindset is the single idea that separates people who build careers from people who spend years planning to build them — and every day I watch smart, capable people freeze because they are waiting to get it right.

Action over perfection means choosing to do something imperfectly rather than waiting until conditions feel right. The most successful people in history — school dropouts, job-quitters, passion-chasers — were never 'right' by anyone's standard when they made their first move. What made them successful was refusing to stop until the world caught up with them. That is the entire philosophy behind Do Not Do It Right, and it is the most honest career advice I know.

Why "Do Not Do It Right" Is Not About Being Sloppy

I named my series deliberately. Not because I want anyone to be careless — but because the obsession with doing it right is the number-one reason people never do it at all.

Most of the time, even when we are trying to do it right, we are wrong. That is not pessimism — it is a statistical reality. First attempts fail. Early versions are rough. Initial business ideas pivot three times before they find product-market fit. The pursuit of perfect before done is a trap that looks like discipline but functions like paralysis.

If you cannot do it right, do it wrong. But make sure you do it — most of the time.

The Social Media Post You Wrote and Never Published

Here is a scenario almost every professional recognises: you draft a LinkedIn post, read it back, decide it is not good enough, and close the tab. You did not post it. You received no feedback. You built no audience. You protected yourself from nothing, because no one ever saw it.

That is perfectionism at work — and it costs more than a failed post ever would. The action over perfection mindset says: publish it anyway. The worst outcome is low engagement. The upside is an audience that grows and a skill that compounds. You learn to write for your audience only by writing for your audience — never by drafting and deleting in private.

I have published content I was not fully confident in. Some underperformed. Some reached tens of thousands of people. I could not have predicted which was which before posting. The only way to find out was to go.

Leaving a Job Before You Are Ready: What Actually Happens

As someone who has trained over 79,000 students across 74+ courses in AI, automation, and business systems, I have studied career transitions in detail — and the pattern is consistent. Every successful entrepreneur made their pivot before they were ready.

They were not right when they left stable employment. Investors said they were wrong. Family said they were wrong. Industry observers said they were wrong. The market, eventually, disagreed.

The people who waited until they were ready — until they had saved enough, until timing was perfect, until skills were locked in — often never made the move at all. Or they made it a decade late, after the window had narrowed or the energy had run out.

You want to leave a job and start a business? Do it. Not recklessly — not without a directional plan — but do it before conditions are perfect. Because perfect conditions do not exist. The conditions you have right now are the only ones you get to start with.

The Cricket Shot Principle: Commit to the Wrong Shot

In cricket, there is a moment every batter faces: you see a delivery, instinct tells you to play a shot your coach would disapprove of, and you hesitate. In that hesitation, the ball arrives. You play a half-shot — committing to nothing — and you are out.

The principle I apply: if you think you should not be playing a particular shot, play it anyway. A committed wrong shot beats an uncommitted right one almost every time. Stumps fall to hesitation more than to bad technique.

Your career works the same way. The so-called wrong business idea, executed with full commitment, outperforms the theoretically right idea executed with one foot out the door. Commitment is a multiplier. Hesitation is a drag coefficient. Pick your wrong shot and play it hard.

What Successful School Dropouts Actually Did

We talk about famous school dropouts as though the dropout itself was the bold move. It was not. The bold move was what came after — the relentless doing, day after day, in the face of everyone who said they were wrong.

They were not right when they dropped out. They were not right when they left jobs to build companies. They were not right when they followed a passion or walked away from a stable career to pursue sport. By any conventional analysis, they were wrong at every major inflection point.

But their focus on doing it — no matter what — made them what they became today. The world did not declare them right on day one. The world declared them right after years of watching them refuse to stop. 'Right' is often just what persistence looks like in retrospect.

How to Apply Action Over Perfection Starting Now

The action over perfection mindset is not a licence for carelessness. It is a framework for momentum. Here is how I apply it:

• Set a 70% threshold. Ask: is this 70% of what I want it to be? If yes, ship it. The remaining 30% comes from real-world feedback, not from more solo revision.
• Make the decision you have been deferring. The job you are thinking of leaving. The course you are thinking of launching. Give yourself 48 hours and make the call.
• Track attempts, not outcomes. Count how many times you showed up and did the thing — posted, pitched, built, applied. Outcomes are lagging indicators. Attempts are leading ones.
• Name your hesitation. When you catch yourself waiting to do it right, write down what 'right' would look like. Usually the bar is invented, not real.
• Do it wrong on purpose once a week. Publish the post you are unsure about. Pitch the client you think is out of reach. Take the wrong shot. You will connect more than you expect.

Based in Dubai and having worked with students across six continents through 74+ courses, the pattern I see most consistently is this: the people who build things are not smarter or more talented than the people who do not. They are simply less willing to let 'not right' mean 'not yet.'

Stop Waiting. Start Doing.

Do not focus on doing it right — focus on doing it, no matter what. The action over perfection mindset is not about lowering standards; it is about refusing to let your standards become an excuse for inaction. Keep doing it. Keep showing up. The world will eventually say you were right all along.

Your next step: identify one thing you have been waiting to do until it felt right. Give yourself until end of day to ship a version of it — imperfect, incomplete, but real.