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Why you aren’t making progress (2 reasons you hold yourself back)

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Read Time: 5 Minutes

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Welcome to Kaizen Culture, your weekly newsletter where I deliver valuable tips, tools, and guidance to help you create freedom, abundance, and positive change in your life.

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Join us every Saturday morning for holistic cheat codes that will accelerate your improvement both personally and professionally.

What you can expect today:

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• 1 Topic: Why you aren’t making progress
• 1 Tip: How to beat perfectionism & comparison
• 1 Takeaway: Tools to help you succeed
• 1 Thought: Does waking up early matter?
• 1 Tribute: The lionhearted man

Today’s Topic: Why you aren’t making progress

Do you ever feel like your own worst enemy? Are you in your own way?

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I can’t tell you how many times I have felt that way. It is frustrating, and leaves you feeling powerless.

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You want to accomplish something, and create positive change in your life but one thing keeps holding you back… YOU.

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I had enough, and wanted to figure out why this happens.

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Here’s what I found:

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The 2 Reasons You Hold Yourself Back

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1. Perfectionism

“Perfectionism is the harshest self abuse” Riley Conder

Perfectionism is a cycle. A loop, or spiral that keeps us stuck.

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• The cycle starts by setting expectations that we can’t meet.
• We then feel shameful, angry, and guilty towards ourselves.
• To “correct” our “failure” we set even higher expectations thinking it will fix the problem.
• It doesn’t, and the cycle continues.

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Where are we left? Frustrated, burnt out, discouraged, and stuck.

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Perfectionism leads to procrastination. Procrastination is a side effect of being afraid that we won’t be perfect.

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Procrastination also guarantees that we will fail, or get mediocre results, which triggers our perfectionism and self hatred.

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Here’s why this doesn’t work:

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Perfectionism isn’t a standard, it’s an obstacle to any level of progress we want to make.

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I’ve heard the most selfish people hide behind perfectionism and insecurity – because out of an attempt to stop rejection, feelings of failure, or discomfort we end up robbing ourselves and everyone else of the great work we could do if we stopped being perfectionistic all the time.

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We become perfectionists because deep down, we don’t think we are “enough”. We try to prove to ourselves we are, by setting perfectionistic standards or expectations. We fail, and reaffirm to ourselves that we aren’t enough. It’s a fucked up head game.

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This is the first reason you hold yourself back.

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2. Comparison

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Theodore Roosevelt

You are so caught up in what everyone else is doing, that you hold yourself back from what you could be doing. You compare yourself, your life, and your results to everyone but the one person that actually matters. The past version of yourself.

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This is a race of one, yet you keep trying to make it about everyone else.

Even if you were, or are making progress it wouldn’t feel good anyways.

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Your milestones can either make you feel amazing or like you are behind. The only difference? Comparison.

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Keep watching everyone else’s highlight reel, instead of creating your own. It’s going to hurt when you die with regret.

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Or… you can follow today’s tip, and stop the madness:

Today’s Tip: How to beat perfectionism & comparison

Want to kick perfectionism and comparisons ass, so they stop kicking yours?

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Here’s how:

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• Reframe failure – You can only fail if you quit. Each failure is a mini milestone on the path to success. You can’t get better if you don’t start sucking more often.

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• Progress over perfection – Look for progress, no matter how small, and grade yourself based on that. Did I try? Did I make any level of progress? Good.

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• Celebrate wins – Take every opportunity you can to pat yourself on the back. Made your bed? Fuck yeah. Took one small step towards your goal? Bad ass. Small wins compound, and YOU decide what a win is (hint, anything can be a win)

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• Celebrate other people – Look at people with Admiration & Inspiration rather than Comparison. People are a mirror to remind you of what you could do, and who you could be. See someone kicking ass, think “Oh I can be that to, or there is some of that in me as well. Thanks for the reminder.”

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• Compete, don’t compare – Learn to compete with yourself instead of others. After all, this is SELF-IMPROVEMENT. It’s about you, and only you.

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• Gratitude – Gratitude is a magic trick that turns “not enough” into “more than enough”. Don’t feel good enough? Gratitude. Feel behind compared to others? Gratitude. Want more blessings and abundance in your life? Gratitude.

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The result we are looking for? Updating your inner dialogue. It’s all a head game anyways.

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If you want help reprograming your mind to kick limiting beliefs, and develop a winners mindset – let’s chat.

Today’s Takeaway: Tools to help you succeed

Looking to develop strong habits, and set goals you actually achieve?

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Consider grabbing two tools I put together for you. They are free.

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Today’s Thought: Does waking up early matter?

At one time in my life I was up by 430-5AM every single day.

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I would train early in the morning before spending the day selling cars, and later real estate.

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Nowadays I do focused work in the morning, and train in the afternoon to break up my day.

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The only downside? I have lost the discipline to wake up by 5AM everyday, even though I really need to.

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If I don’t, I spend all day scattered, behind, and frustrated.

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This quote summed it up better than I ever could:

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” Richard Whately

So I started an accountability group for waking up by 530AM every day.

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Currently this is my biggest focus, as it will completely change my life haha!

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If you want to be in it, reply to this email!

Today’s Tribute: The lionhearted man

Each week I am going to give a tribute to someone special:

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• A member in the community
• Impactful people in my life
• One of my clients kicking ass

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This week, I wanted to shout out one of my Mentors – Attila.

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Attila – The Lionhearted Man Attila is a man with the heart of a lion. A true leader, family man, and healer. I am honored to be learning from him.

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Attila owns the Aluna Healing Center in Potter Valley, California.

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Recently, I became his apprentice.

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I am learning the art of being a medicine man, and bringing people together for transformational retreats.

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I am so excited to announce something that has been in the works since October 2023:

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In August we are co-facilitating a transformational retreat for Men. This experience is all about helping men to become their higher self.

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We will help these men:

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• heal trauma, and improve their mental health
• create a clear vision for their lives, and a plan to bring it to life
• develop their leadership abilities, helping them to lead themselves and others

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and most importantly overcome the limiting beliefs holding them back.

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If you, or a man you know is interested in learning more – you can reply to this email, or message me on any social media platform to learn more.

Top Video This Week:

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Going through a breakup?… (what I wish I knew back then)

In this video we cover the lessons I learned, and how I grew getting over a breakup, getting cheated on, and calling off an engagement.

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You can reply directly to this email with any questions, wins, or thoughts you had this week. ​ Thank you for joining me this week. With love, support, & gratitude, ​Riley Conder “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius ​ Forwarded this email? Sign up here​ Find me on social media ​​​​​​

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Conder Creations LLC

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