There’s no doubt that cleansing is a hot trend in Hollywood and around the country these days. There are juice cleanses, fruit cleanses, veggie cleanses, and even strange sorts of “cleanses” where you eat all bananas one day, all steak the next. Whatever crazy or not crazy cleanse you’re on now, most of them center around what you’re eating or not eating. But there’s another kind of cleanse you might need to consider implementing in your life – an agenda cleanse.
Every month, when I get my O Magazine, I frantically rip it open and find Martha Beck’s article for that month. This month, she wrote “Staying True to You: 6 Steps to a More Honest Life.” In it, she recommends all of us complete what she calls an “agenda cleanse”, and after reading through her important steps in this cleanse, I think it’s as important if not more important as those health cleanses you might be thinking of.
I’m sharing with you here the first two steps in Martha Beck’s “Agenda Cleanse”:
Step 1: Pick an interaction, any interaction.
Think of something you plan to do in the upcoming hours or days that involves other people. It could be going to a coworker’s birthday party, putting in a day at the office, attending square-dancing class, whatever. We’ll call this interaction activity X.
Step 2: Ask yourself the actor’s question.
Keeping activity X in mind, ask yourself, What’s my motivation for doing this? Don’t spit out the first facile answer that comes to mind (Um, I have to?). Give it real thought, and be brutally honest. Your clarity—maybe a little piece of your sanity—depends on it.
There might be several reasons you’re planning to undertake activity X. Feel for the one that’s deepest. Maybe you’ll be attending the coworker’s birthday party because you sort of want to be there but also to be polite, and mainly because you want cake. You may go to work to earn money, and to feel important, but primarily to prove your worth to your parents. Perhaps you square-dance partly for love of the music, partly to show off your new Frye boots, but mostly because your friends just keep hounding you until you go. Pick the motivation that feels most true, your real bedrock reason.
About the Author: Marcy Twete
Marcy Twete is the Founder and CEO of Career Girl Network and the author of the book “You Know Everybody! A Career Girl’s Guide to Building a Network That Works.” At Career Girl Network, Marcy provides women with information, resources, and networking to empower them in their careers and to advance the work of women in business as a whole. Prior to launching Career Girl Network, Marcy worked in numerous nonprofit organizations and as a consultant in the field of nonprofit fundraising, marketing, and community relations. Marcy is a graduate of the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and a native of rural North Dakota. She is the Vice Chair of the Chicago Board of Directors for Step Up Women’s Network in Chicago and a member of the Advisory Board for Girls on the Run Twin Cities, and is dedicated to advancing the work of organizations that move the needle for women and girls worldwide.
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