When most of us think of success, it is in terms of a desirable but nebulous something to be achieved in the indefinite future. "Someday, when I have the time and the money," runs such thinking, "I'm going to have" and on continues the dream, each to each man's taste.

The distant goal, the long-range objective, is essential to successful career planning, but the elapse of time alone is not going to get you there. Decision and action are the allies of progress; procrastination is the enemy of progress.

How often you have told yourself of the many little things you could accomplish if you could only get around to it. Those little things could be accomplishments. They can be left to die on the vine with no apparent loss suffered, or they can be made to flourish to the enormous enrichment of your entire life.

Only a very little seed is needed to grow a big tree. While this takes a good many years, it is different with people: one little success can start you on the way to very much larger ones in days, weeks, or even hours.

It's Better If You Like It

What would you like to get done within the next 24 hours? Don't think of some unpleasant chore, like cleaning the basement, when you can just as effectively start out on something pleasant. Think of something that can use the best of your abilities, or improve your mind, like reading the book that you meant to read months ago.

Write it down, and then in more detail describe four steps needed for its accomplishment. You now have a method to use in reaching a pre-arranged objective. Take that Step One, and because yours is a short-term, 24-hour project, you give Time no opportunity to stop you with procrastination. The remaining three steps will follow through on the momentum of Step One.

Let me warn you about that first step. It may look easy, and even pleasant, but the inertia of years of "getting along" is hard to budge in the direction of "getting ahead." Time used those years to get its forces of procrastination deeply entrenched. Before you can move you must overcome both inertia and procrastination, but once you are rolling, the rest is easy.

The result can be a revelation. In one 24-hour period you have proved to yourself that what you have done in a small way you can do on a larger scale with practice. Destroyed forever is the theory that success is a matter of "getting the breaks," or that it comes to some people because they are luckier than others. You have made many mistakes, accidentally. This 24-hour experience proves you can manufacture "a success," purposefully.

Now that you are rolling, continue setting day-to-day seed projects, not forgetting to reward yourself from time to time. My definition of an achievement - something you did well, enjoyed doing, and are proud of. That "enjoyed doing" is as important to over-all success as it is to the achievements that make success possible. Don't let yourself become a slave to success.

It will help you to do this too: At the end of each day, make a note for yourself in answer to the following question, "What's the best thing that happened to me today?" Even on the worst days, some things are just a little better than others. Make a habit of looking for something that is "best" in each of your days.

You are now on the way to making the rest of your life a success.