Having a difficult time with a project? Start some action on it anywhere. Get yourself into some kind of action.

Sometimes enthusiasm needs to be generated. As you get yourself in gear, you'll start to generate enthusiasm and momentum.

Today's TQ Challenge: Stop Getting Ready to Get Ready. Find a Way to Get Started.

1. Choose to be RESOURCEFUL! Do you find it is easier to keep going once you've started or to get going?

2. Choose to be CREATIVE! What project are you having difficulty getting started on?

3. Choose to be SELF-INITIATED! For which difficult project can you find a task, no matter how small, that you can begin right now?

There is no greater reward than accomplishing a difficult task. However, you can't complete a project if it never gets started. Procrastination can take a million clever forms -- but so can action. Instead of putting things off, find clever and imaginative ways to get started somewhere -- anywhere -- even for a few minutes. Take some action to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

"Money will come to you when you are doing the right thing." ~ Michael Phillips

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Act Now Color.

One of the best qualities a leader can have is openness to new ideas and fresh input. Don't rely merely on your staff for doing tasks. Solicit their ideas on how to accomplish the desired results.

Get more input from the individuals involved in your project, and you'll be more effective when it's time to make any decision.

Today's TQ Challenge: Actively Recruit Others to Help.

1. Choose to be COLLABORATIVE! Won't motivation and enthusiasm increase for your projects when others are allowed to give their input and direction from the beginning?

2. Choose to be RESOURCEFUL! Who knows better about what's going on with the project than the people directly involved?

3. Choose to be EXUBERANT! Who's involved with your current project and could give you fresh input today?

There are many talented people who are ready, willing and able to contribute to your goals and projects. All you have to do is ask! All they need is your vision, direction and appreciation. Stop trying to be an army of one! Call in an expert. Collaborate with others. You'll be surprised at how much easier it is to accomplish your goals with the assistance of the right people. You'll get more done, the end product will be of a higher quality and you'll have more fun in the process.

"Successful people are successful because they form the habits of doing those things that failures don't like to do." ~ Albert Gray

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Synergize Color.

You need to be organized, but not just for the sake of organization. If it's to be meaningful, any system of organization must be designed for the accomplishment of one of your goals.

Automate your most productive activities, and you will automatically reap more rewards.

Today's TQ Challenge: Create Highly Productive Systems to do the Work FOR You.

1. Choose to be EFFECTIVE! Do your systems facilitate step-by-step accomplishment of your goals?

2. Choose to be PROFICIENT! Do your goals need to be more clearly defined in order for your systems to work more effectively?

3. Choose to be SYSTEMATIC! You may know what you're doing tomorrow... but, do you know why?

Every activity contains a series of steps that must be completed correctly to be successful. Systemize your success. Identify the critical steps required to complete your most productive and rewarding activities. Then, create a "well-oiled machine" to automatically crank out results for you. Systemize those steps through technology, checklists, delegation or by enrolling additional team members -- and you will achieve the results you expect -- far more often. Automate this Factor and you'll double, triple or even quadruple your productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.

"Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done." ~ James Ling

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Organize Color.

When you plan ahead, look for potential problems in advance, then come up with ways to avoid or prevent them.

The best time to pack your raincoat is before the cloud burst.

Today's TQ Challenge: Stop and Think Things Through -- BEFORE Taking Action.

1. Choose to be FORESIGHTFUL! What potential problem may delay your current project?

2. Choose to be THOROUGH! What will you do today to prevent a future problem from showing up in your current project?

3. Choose to be PREPARED! If you plan a picnic, it's best to be prepared for any change in weather. What could rain on your project this week?

By thinking through each project -- both forwards and backwards -- you can visualize the proper sequence of events required to achieve major objective -- in the fewest number of steps possible. You can also prevent time-consuming mistakes by eliminating inappropriate steps, while including others that will be more effective and productive. When you can see what needs to be done -- well before you start -- you can remove the obstacles and bottlenecks to your progress -- well BEFORE they occur!

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." ~ Plato

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Make Plans Color.

Never let other people decide your limitations or capabilities. There will always be those who will say you're not smart enough, old enough, young enough, etc. to accomplish your goals. Don't listen.

You know what you're capable of better than anyone. Remember, you can accomplish anything you set your heart and mind to accomplish!

Today's TQ Challenge: Commit to Actually DOING Whatever It Takes -- Then DO It.

1. Choose to be CONFIDENT! Does anyone currently question your capabilities?

2. Choose to be OPTIMISTIC! How can you distance yourself from those who make you doubt yourself?

3. Choose to be SELF-RELIANT! What'll you do to impress yourself today?

Success is the direct result of taking the right actions, the right way, at the right time for the right reasons. Understand this and you can take on anything with confidence. Just discover what the right actions are and do them. Your success isn't limited by past mistakes -- but by your willingness to take the right actions right now! If you have no confidence in your ability, you won't even try. But, if you're committed to do whatever it takes until you get it right -- you will eagerly proceed with the confidence to succeed.

"Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Attitude Color.

Let your heart guide your mission, and your mission guide your actions. Then everything you do will have meaning.

Record every action you take today as evidence of what you believe in the most.

Today's TQ Challenge: Live Each of Your Top 10 Core Personal Values -- Every Day.

1. Choose to be DEVOTED! Have you noticed the way you feel when you work toward something important to you, rather than toward something you don't care about?

2. Choose to be COMMITTED! What types of activities give your days special meaning?

3. Choose to be INSPIRED! When will you find time today to ask yourself, "What gives my life meaning?"

A testament is something that provides tangible proof. The actions you take and the results you produce are living proof of what's most important to you. The only evidence of whether you value something is if you make it a part of your life. There's no getting around this. For you to live your values, they have to show up somewhere other than a framed mission statement on the wall. They deserve to be a part of the legacy of results you leave behind at the end of each day.

"People wait for opportunity to come along...yet it is there every morning." ~ Dennis the Menace

Read Today's TQ, and find out how to improve this aspect of your Mission Color.

I made it a habit years ago to ruthlessly limit my exposure to junk, fake and useless news to just 30 minutes a day.

That is more than enough time to get a global perspective on what's going on, process what is being said, and form an opinion.

Think about this.

There are only 1,440 minutes in a day (24 hours x 60 minutes).

Read this article at ThinkTQ.com.

For the past two weeks, we have been discussing the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have done your very best.

If you do the best you can, given the circumstances in which you find yourself, what more is there?

Better.

Read this article at ThinkTQ.com.

To achieve your dreams... to maintain balance in the heat of the battle... to know that you have done the best you could given the circumstances you faced... requires you to focus on the important, and not be consumed by the urgent.

This is a major driver of success, both personally and professionally. It is not hard to focus, if you know what's important to you, and what's not.

Read this article at ThinkTQ.com.

For the next two weeks, we will be discussing the "flip side" of Will Power: Peace of Mind.

As those of you who have read The Power of TQ know, my definition of success is simply this: "The peace of mind that comes from knowing you have done your very best."

As General Patton says, if you do your best, what more is there?

Read this article at ThinkTQ.com.

This week, in light of the upcoming Thanksgiving Weekend, we will be discussing how showing thanks and appreciation, in everyday terms, enhances your ability to live what you value most.

If you are not GETTING what you want out of life, maybe you're not GIVING enough to it.

Read this article at ThinkTQ.com.