Resonance – Episode 55
Verbatim Transcript
Speaker: Viktoria Levenberg
How often do you say yes without thinking twice about it? I see you. I feel you. I have struggled
with the exact same problem. Thought it was cool, so I was like, “I’m just gonna jump on the
bandwagon.” Trust me when I say this: I’ve been there too. We can’t foresee the future as much
as, as we would like to, and I realised that I had all these secret tricks and frameworks that I’ve
been using, and I hadn’t been sharing them with the world until…
How many times have you said yes when your soul was screaming, “Absolutely not”? In today’s
episode, I’m gonna give you the four essential things to do before you say yes to anything. Let’s
begin.
Welcome to Resonance, the podcast for high performers and entrepreneurs who want to do life,
work, and success differently. I am your host, Viktoria Levenberg, and I’m obsessed with
efficiency, productivity, and planning in a way that harnesses your energy and your natural
rhythms while keeping you in alignment and integrity. Because I have figured out that lasting
success is not about the hustle. It is about being in resonance. Let’s begin.
I’ve got a question for you. Like, on a scale of one to ten, where one is never and ten is all the
time, how often do you say yes without thinking twice about it? And now, look, my people
pleasers be warned. I see you. I feel you. I have struggled with the exact same problem, and it is
boundaries, which is exactly what we’re talking about this week.
So by the end of this episode, you will know the exact crucial four steps to take before you say
yes to anything so that you can make aligned choices without stretching yourself thin to meet
everyone else’s needs but your own. All right, let’s dive in.
Okay, so what are these four steps? Now, I’m gonna literally reveal it to you step by step and kind
of flattering little examples of what this looks like in my life so that you can really see yourself
here. Because let’s be real: if you are the type of person who values your time and your energy,
yet also you might be the type of person who really struggles with saying no or maybe
disappointing others, especially if it’s someone you care about or they’re in a position of
authority, um, then this episode is for you.
And so this might be a little bit different to what you normally see out there. Like I, as my
students will tell you, my methods are quite unconventional, and that’s why they work. Um, and
so if anything comes up for you and bubbles to the surface as we dive into this, just know that
that is totally normal. It is part of the process. You know, our nervous system’s job is to defend us
from new information. It literally is like, “You are taking more brain cells than I have capacity for.
Do not believe what she is saying.”
So if you notice your nervous system doing any of this, just know that it’s basically doing its job.
It’s trying to protect you and keep you stuck and safe in the old habitual patterns that, even
though they’re not working, you’ve done them for so long, they’re familiar. And, you know, I will
never forget a quote from one of my mentors, Kate Northrup, when she said, “Your nervous
system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.” Like, that was a paradigm
shift for me.
And so just know, you know, if you’re someone who struggles with setting boundaries and some
of the things that I share right now might seem a little bit, hmm, out of reach, just let it wash
over you. Come back to this. Let your unconscious mind percolate on it. And if you are the type
of person who is ready to implement some of this, oh my god, you are in for a wild ride.
So let’s dive into these. I’ve been dangling this carrot right in front of you for long enough. So
what are the four essential steps to take before you say yes to anything?
The first one: alignment. So check in with yourself. Is this in alignment with your values, your
priorities, your goals, your overall life vision? Or is this just like something you heard someone
else say and you thought it was cool, so it’s like, “I’m just gonna jump on the bandwagon”? Like,
this is always my first protocol is like, and um, for those of us who are listening who might be
more kind of sensual and intuitive and really um, in sense and in tune with your body, sometimes
you’ll know when something’s out of alignment when it just feels off. Like, you can’t explain it,
but it just doesn’t feel right. And that’s your kind of, your red light or your little warning sign that
chances are this is out of alignment with something.
Um, so that is the step one is, okay, is this actually aligned with what I want to, what I’m
supposed to be doing? Check. If not, realign. Okay, so that’s No. 1: alignment.
Number two, and oh my gosh, if you don’t do this, ah, come see me because we need to talk,
and that is your calendar. So before you say yes to anything, you’ve got to be able to have a look
and say, see what else you’ve already said yes to. So this allows you to evaluate what saying yes
to, whether it’s a project, a coffee date, a holiday, etcetera, means for everything else that you
have already committed your precious time and energy to. So is this something that’ll easily fit in,
or does it mean that you have to say no to something else?
Because here’s what a lot of people tend to forget is that every yes is a no elsewhere. And so you
get to choose where those yeses and nos go. Of course, you know, we all have to be doing some
things in life that maybe we don’t wanna be doing, but our goal here is to minimise that as much
as possible and work really smartly with those resources of ours that we have.
And I’ve got a really perfect example of it, like from literally just an hour ago before I started
recording this episode. Um, it is midweek, right, so like a school day, so to speak. And my partner,
um, had a little surprise idea for us to go out for dinner on a school night, which is something
that we rarely do. If you’re the type of couple that goes out on a school night, like kudos, respect.
We’re generally quite the homebodies, so it’s like something very different, um, versus our
normal day-to-day life.
And even though I had a pretty good visual of my calendar and like everything else I had already
said yes to, I still was like, okay, just before he pressed to book, I was like, “Just hang on a second.
Let me run up and check my calendar hahaha.” And it was so cute because, bless little me, he’d
already floated that idea a few days prior, and I already pencilled in that exact time for us to go
out for dinner. So I like anticipated and manifested this dinner date ahead of time. Isn’t that
amazing? Isn’t that so cool when you can like plan things and then bring them into reality and like
it actually plays a role in your manifestation practice?
So anyways, I apologise for this little side tangent, but to bring it back to these four steps is check
the calendar. Because let’s say I hadn’t, um, you know, protected that time. Maybe I had planned
to do something else, or maybe I had a meeting. You know, like this is how double booking
happens. This is where people overschedule themselves, and I mean that not just by physical
meetings where you kind of have an engagement with someone else. I also mean any meetings
with yourself. So any commitments that you’ve made to yourself, like maybe going to the gym or
a spa day or whatever else, or any commitments to your work. So perhaps you had blocked out
that time to do some deep focus work, etcetera.
Um, and so it’s really important that again you, you know that and you go back to your calendar
and you understand that, okay, well if I say yes to this and that time was already allocated to
something else, then I understand the trade-off that I’m making and that there will be another
trade-off in the future where this thing needs to come into. So just be, be mindful of that. So step
two is check the calendar.
Step three is your workload. And while this is similar to No. 2, it is vastly different. So I kind of
already teased this a bit when I spoke about the having some time blocked out to do something
in your calendar, but like, let’s say to get a little bit more specific here. Imagine I’m here, I am
recording Resonance. You’re listening right now. You’re amazing. I’m so grateful that you’re here.
And let’s say I scheduled two, three, four hours of podcast batching, um, and all of a sudden I had
something else come up to say yes to. So maybe a friend is in town and they wanna go out for
lunch, which just so happens to be at the same time that I had scheduled this podcast matching
time block in, in my workload. And you know, maybe this friend is really near and dear, and I
already definitely take the box on, yep, this aligns with my values. You know, my friends are really
important to me. I wanna spend time with them. And I also take the box for No. 2 in terms of,
well, I didn’t have any actual appointments with any other people, so yes, we’re good to move
forward.
Before I say yes, I really need to evaluate the trade off this means. So it’s sort of lunch date, four
hours of podcast batching, lunch date, four hours of podcast batching, IE not that it’s one or the
other because, you know, in this specific scenario, maybe I want both of them to happen. Um,
one because I get to, one because I get to and need to. Um, but then that means, OK, well like,
when else in the week am I gonna reschedule this podcast batching session too? Like, what else
in my plan needs to shift as a result?
And this is where most high performers go wrong and over-commit, because they skip this
crucial, crucial, crucial, crucial important step. Because, you know, they’ll just like delete stuff off
the calendar or not think about it and be like, “Oh whatever, I’ll deal with it later.” But it’s like, no,
you are negotiating with yourself.
And with your time and your capacity, and it’s easier to make that negotiation before you actually
commit to something else, because then you already know what the trade-off and the knock-on
effect is, rather than kind of suffer later down the line.
So just to help kind of clarify and articulate the difference between No. 2 and 3, like when I say
No. 2, look at the calendar, I mean any other engagements or commitments that you’ve already
made to others or logistical things you need to kind of take into consideration. So, you know, if
you’re on the other side of town and then you wanna have an appointment on some other side
of town, and you’ve only got five minutes to get between the two places, that doesn’t work.
And I know I might be teaching and preaching to the converted here, but it still baffles me where,
like, people still overschedule and double, triple, quadruple, quintuple book themselves. So that’s
why I just really wanted to delineate the two, where the calendar is actual booked things, and
then the workload is sort of movable things, but that still need to happen, that you have
scheduled time for.
Um, and I know that my students who are in Efficiency Made Easy are absolute, like, amazing at
this because that’s what I teach them. Um, but if you are not the type of person who already
manages your resources and allocates time accordingly based on what needs to happen, then we
definitely want to have a chat.
Um, and I’ve got another kind of really great example for you where I had a friend reach out, and
this is gonna play into the fourth step in just a moment, but I already wanted to introduce you to
this example where this specific person is more of a last-minute, kind of spontaneous kind of
person, and I’m just very different. I’m very much a planner. I look far ahead. I have a lot in my life
that I’m juggling, and so it’s really important for me to protect and allocate that time specifically.
And so, um, this person reached out at the last minute, and yeah, they were a tick for the
alignment with my values, and they were a tick for the calendar was technically free, but then the
workload component was like, “MMM, I don’t think that’s a trade off I wanna make because of
the domino knock on effect that might have to other things.”
Um, and so I will often use this little calendar versus workload nuance with my partner, where on
the weekends, let’s say, where I’ve got some time allocated to work on my business, I will tell him
like, “Look, I need to do these things. Like, these are the things that I am, uh, committing myself
to getting through this weekend. However, I don’t have any fixed appointments. So as in when
you’ve got the urge to go for a walk or go on a little family outing or adventure, like, let me know
and I can jiggle things around.”
Um, and that works really well in our relationship because it allows for that spaciousness and
spontaneity while still also keeping me honest to the things that I have already committed myself
to in advance.
Um, and so that brings me to the last piece, and this one’s so damn important, and most of us
ignore it, and that’s really sad. That’s why I’m here sharing this with you right now. And the fourth
step is your energy.
So you’ve got to be able to, first of all, anticipate and, um, understand where your unique
individual energetic patterns will be in your life, and that is something that I teach my students
inside Efficiency Made Easy. We dive into the cycles of success. Um, however, there’s another
caveat to this, which is you also need to be able to daily check in in real time and, if needed, pivot
and adjust your plan, of course, because we’re not, you know, we can’t foresee the future as
much as, as we would like to.
Um, you know, every plan is doomed to be, uh, somehow adjusted because we do not know
what’s gonna happen in the next minute, let alone the next week, let alone the next month. But
don’t let that stop you from planning in general. You know, it’s like you’ve got to have some kind
of vision, some kind of structure and framework so that you can take all that load off of your
shoulders and your poor brain that’s got all these million tabs open, and just trust your system.
But like the beautiful African proverb goes, you, you pray, you set your intention and move your
feet. And so your plan is the, the intention setting that then also guides you into action while
allowing you to respond in real time.
So this is where the energy piece comes in. And, um, look, not to go too deeply into this because
I speak about this in other episodes and, and I literally have a whole program around this with
the cycles of success. Um, the TL DR of it is the, the fact that there are four specific cycles to how
human beings, nature, the moon, the universe all are wired. It’s all, it’s a universal pattern that
applies no matter whether you are male or female or non binary, um, whether you are cycling or
not cycling.
Um, it is, there are so many different cycles that influence every single living being on this planet
that happen automatically and whether we like it or not, whether we’re using them and
leveraging them to our advantage or not. And so I have now been using this for so many years
that it happens automatically in my own work, life, and business. But I’ve also now begun to
transform this into a framework that I teach to my students.
And that’s, that was the kind of like the big aha moment that came for me earlier this year, where
I had this whole breakthrough around, you know, the, these ambitious, high performing type A
people that I really wanna help, um, you know, just get some bloody workload and stress off their
plate and get back to living their life and enjoying what they actually came here onto this planet
to do, be, and enjoy.
And I realised that I had all these secret tricks and frameworks that I’ve been using, and I hadn’t
been sharing them with the world until, of course, I, I launched my first program, you know, in
quarter one. I’ve now done the second launch, like now preparing for the third one. So, um, it’s,
it’s pretty cool. And to see that piece be really kind of the final decision factor in whether I say
yes or no to something has been an absolute game-changer.
And most people don’t even know what these cycles of success are, let alone implement them
into their planning. Yet this is the ingredient that I was missing until I discovered it and absolutely
had skyrocket my productivity to the moon.
And so as an example, again, going back to, um, that friend that I was telling you about, where I
was already feeling like, ooh, the, I’m not sure if I wanna make this trade off with all the, um,
other commitments that I’ve already said yes to that I’ve got coming up. The last deciding factor
for me was also the energy piece.
So I knew where I and the world and the universe were in their cycles of success, alongside what
was being demanded from me in other areas of my life, and I was able to make a conscious
choice and say, “You know what, as hard as this is, no thank you. I love you. Let’s do this another
time.”
And it’s hard. I’m, I’m gonna be the first to put my hand up. You know, saying no isn’t easy to all
of us. Um, you know, maybe some more than others. But these boundaries are like a love letter
to yourself. They’re, they are a form of self-care. You know, I’ve spoken about this on the podcast
before. I’ll, I’ll link that episode down in the show notes.
Um, but I just really wanted to give you this, a super simple step-by-step framework that you can
use at any time you get the opportunity to do something that’s coming up. So literally, again, to
recap, these four steps are: align, check the calendar, check your workload, and then check your
energy.
And I know you might be thinking like, “But Vik, I don’t have control or agency over my life or
schedule.” Like, you know, some of you might have kid drop-offs to deal with, or you’re employed
full-time in corporate, and so you’ve got kind of those deadlines to navigate, or maybe you’ve got
a boss that’s constantly nagging at you. You know, you’ve got the house to clean, etcetera,
etcetera. And like, you’re totally right. I agree with you. You do have a lot, and it might seem like
you don’t have a lot of control and agency over your life, work, and schedule.
But trust me when I say this: I’ve been there too. And I’ve watched my students adjust their
decision-making process in real time and seen the ripple effect that that has when they’ve been
just as busy as you, just as stretched and overcommitted as you, and just as much in that, “Oh my
gosh, I don’t know how I’m even gonna do this” mindset as you might be in right now. And if they
can do it, you can too, okay?
Trust me, when you begin to even try with the smallest little doable thing, and you implement
that, and then you play with the next one, and you play with the next one, like everything
changes. Like, if I were to give you an example, you know, again, for those of you maybe who are
more in the workforce, who, um, have less agency or perceived agency over your schedule, like
this is the exact framework that I use whenever there’s a new project or a new work stream
coming on, and this is what’s empowered me to set really.
Firm boundaries with my colleagues and with myself, where, um, as an example, a couple weeks
ago, at the time of the recording of this episode, I was, um, about to be on leave for like two
weeks. Um, and because of all the public holidays, etcetera, I basically ended up with like just
having one work day week between public holidays and my, and my actual planned annual leave
time.
And there was a colleague who had made a request of some assistance from my side, um, based
on some previous work that I had done, except that I knew that the previous work that I had
done had taken me, you know, basically a week, and I only had this one day. Plus, because, of
course, I’m really well planned and efficient, I already had allocated that day to specific things
that needed to be done before I was heading on leave.
And so when they asked me, and this was before that specific day, but it wasn’t much notice, but
when they asked me to do this new project or this new task, I was able to really clearly articulate,
“Hey, this is the container of capacity that I have available. These are already all the other things
that I am precommitted to. And so based on what you’re requesting, the earliest I could get this
to you is when I’m back,” which obviously wasn’t matching with their timeline. And then it ended
up being like, fine, it’s okay, we don’t need it.
Um, I’m not saying that that’s always gonna be the end result, but what I’m saying is that by
following this simple four step framework, you’ve got the ability to communicate more clearly, to
communicate further in advance, and have much richer conversations, whether it’s with your
partner, whether it’s with your boss, with your colleagues, with your team members, with your
whoever, because you are suddenly responding to life and demands consciously rather than just
reacting to them as they’re kind of blowing left, right, and center. So this is the magic.
And so the choice is yours. You know, it’s like, will you keep letting other people’s priorities
dictate how you spend your time and energy, which are your most precious assets, or will you
take agency over your own life and what you say yes to?
And so there you have it. To summarise, simply follow this four-step formula before you say yes
to anything that comes across your desk or your calendar, and watch the magic unfold. Step 1:
alignment. Step 2: check the calendar. Step 3: workload. Step 4: energy.
And I guarantee you, you’ve got very high chances of impeccable alignment, spaciousness inside
and out, and blissful creativity and calm emanating up and through you.
So as we wrap this week’s episode, I just wanted to remind you that every yes is a no somewhere
else. And so a little invitation to get you started is: what is one thing on your calendar or your to-
do list that you said yes to that no longer meets some of these criteria? And maybe you even take
it off.
Maybe that feels a little bit edgy. Maybe that feels a little bit naughty. Maybe it’s even a little bit
nerve-racking. And that’s a green light. That is good because that means you are doing
something new and different and outside of your comfort zone, which means you’re making
progress, which means you’re that much closer to tapping into the most productive, most
efficient, most spacious, easeful, and calm you that you have ever met.
Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I look forward to seeing you next week. In
the meantime, have a beautiful week ahead. Bye for now.
How valuable would it be to 10 x your results in half the time while having more energy and
freedom in your life? Just imagine the things that you could achieve if you finally stopped running
on empty and instead learned how to cultivate peak performance in your work, life, and
business.
Now, we did just close enrollment to Efficiency Made Easy, which is my group coaching program
where I teach elite-level systems, tools, and processes that you won’t find any other productivity
book. However, I’ve got you. We will be opening enrollment again in a few months, so make sure
that you join the priority list today and so that you can be the first to know when I open doors
again and also be the first in line to score some exclusive, exclusive VIP bonuses and perks.
The link is in the show notes just below or on my website, viktorialevenberg.com.
The views and opinions expressed by guest on Resonance are their own and do not necessarily
reflect the views of me, Viktoria Levenberg, LVNHealth, or anyone working within the LVNHealth
brand. This space welcomes a diversity of ideas, experiences, and stories, and part of Resonance
is learning to take what aligns and gently leaving the rest.
Also, while I am a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach and deeply passionate
about well-being, this podcast is intended for educational and inspirational purposes only.
Resonance does not substitute personalised medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. Always
seek guidance from qualified professionals for any physical, emotional, or mental health
concerns.
