You’ve made the commitment to change, with a clear vision for taking sustainable action in 2010. So how are you tracking after the first quarter? What results do you see? Are you on track or are you overwhelmed by the challenge?

I invite you to take a few moments to reflect and learn from a few tips from international change experts, to reinvigorate your plans for 2010. What follows are five simple yet powerful questions to re-energise your ideas and quickly move into action and results.

What has worked so far?

Identify what is working for you. What has been going well that you can continue? Consider both the large wins and those small, day-to-day wins that have kept you moving towards your goal.

When we are busy ‘doing’ we often consider our success par for the course, instead focusing on the problems and what is not yet done. Taking time to acknowledge what is working will confirm that you are actually moving forward and making progress.

This strengths-based approach is a powerful motivational tool for your organisation. It helps teams and individuals identify how their efforts are contributing towards success.

What have you learnt?

Recognise what you have learnt in the first quarter. What do you now know that you didn’t know at the beginning of 2010? What went as planned? What surprised you?

Pursuing a goal is as much a learning process as it is a planning process. You will have discovered new information that could not have been foreseen during the planning phase. Considering what you have learnt, how do you need to re-scope or change your plans?

What motivates you to reach your targets?

Understand what the targets mean to you personally. Let’s say one target is to fully offset greenhouse gas emissions from your company’s vehicle fleet by December 2010. How does this connect with your values? How does it fit in with the career and business decisions you’ve made up to this point? How does it enable you to add value to the world? Knowing what meeting this target means to you lets you tap into your energy reserves to overcome the challenges you face in reaching it.

Are others as motivated as you?

In his book, The Heart of Change, Harvard Business School professor John Kotter suggests that the way to motivate others is to create ‘compelling, eye-catching dramatic situations’ to help them see and feel the issues. Kotter argues that data and logical analysis are unlikely to motivate us to take action.

For an example of this, compare two scenarios. Company A undertakes an organisation-wide informational campaign on how to reduce waste at work, including data on the tonnage of waste currently produced, the target landfill reduction and tips on how each employee can reduce waste. Company B selects a team to make a short, YouTube-style video clip on the waste produced by their department in one week. The film shows the team collecting the waste, separating the landfill waste from the recyclable waste, and dumping the landfill waste at the disposal site, followed by interviews with team members on their experience. Company B then shows the video to teams across the company and generates discussion with each team on the video’s impact.

Consider how you are currently motivating others. Are you taking Company A’s approach, running a data-based debate based on logic to obtain support? Or are you acting like Company B, helping others to understand the issues so they are compelled to be involved? What could you do differently to motivate others to see and feel the positive impact of reaching the goal?

What can you do today?

Do something every day that moves you closer to your target. It doesn’t have to be something world-changing.

Recently, I attended a packed breakfast seminar with Meg Wheatley, author, organisational change expert and co-founder of The Berkana Institute, a global charitable leadership foundation. Wheatley shared success stories from her community-based change work with us, and four words have stayed with me since: ‘do what you notice’. Her message was simple: don’t get lost by trying to take big actions. Notice what you can do and take small actions, every day, that make a difference. Make changes in one manageable area, without worrying just yet how you can replicate this across the whole business. When you have taken all the actions you can, act on the next thing you notice. This one tip can help you move through feeling overwhelmed when a goal seems too big to put in place.

Taking time regularly to reflect on our progress can produce powerful insights and take us in new directions. How has taking the time to reflect on your progress made a difference to you? And what other questions have you found to be powerful in making progress towards your goals?

Kyla Jacuzzi operates a coaching and facilitation business offering career, business and change coaching.

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