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Success. Most of us want it, however it is that we define it.

If you didn’t want it, you’re probably not here reading this.

You might find yourself sitting here wondering how to go about achieving success. I mean, where do you even start? When you’re standing at the base of a mountain and looking up at it, you marvel at it. And if you were to climb that mountain, you might even begin to be discouraged just staring up at it. Where do you even start?

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao-Tzu

As Lao-Tzu says, you start small. You start with a single step.

Here are two simple steps you can take to put yourself on the path to success.

1. Create Small, Daily Habits

Everything big is made up of tiny parts. A day is made up of 86,400 seconds. Each one is so brief, so fleeting, that we hardly notice it. And yet, once over 86 thousand of them have passed, we’ve moved on to a new day.

Your house is made up of smaller pieces, and you can break those down even still to their atomic level, making them incredibly small.

Likewise, you’re going to build your success on what you do every day. Because success isn’t a product, it’s a process.

Who you are today is a culmination of what you’ve done in the past. And who you’ll be tomorrow is directly driven by what you’re doing right now, in this very moment!

When you start to realize this fact, the importance of even the little things becomes very clear to you.

So give yourself a leg up by creating small habits that you do daily that will contribute to your success.

If success to you means being a published author, then set yourself a daily writing goal. Make it small so that it’s easily achievable (which also makes it harder for you to use excuses like “I’m too busy” or “I haven’t got the time”). Maybe set yourself a goal to write 3 paragraphs a day.

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2. Keep Your Eye on the Long Game

None of us are perfect planners. Try as we might, we can never account for every potential scenario ahead of time.

Things will happen, obstacles will come up. There are days where we just won’t feel like much, or feel like doing much.

In times like this it’s incredibly easy to lose focus on our goal.

But if you focus on the long game instead, then immediate challenges or obstacles you face won’t phase you as much.

Using our example goal earlier of being a writer, if you focus on completing your masterpiece and being published, then the fact that you didn’t write anything today won’t bother you as much.

Sure, it’s best to take small steps every day to our goal (see above), but if something happens that keeps you from taking a step in the right direction today, that’s OK!

Believe me, the world will not end.

Just be sure that you don’t lose sight of the end goal.

Do you have any more ideas on taking steps toward achieving your dreams? Share them below!

Hi, I’m Aaron Graves — Voluntaryist, Success Coach, Leader, Hobbyist Programmer, and PhDude. Phew, that’s a lot to get out in one sentence. I recently started Change2Change.me. It’s all about helping people realize their full potential.