I’m tired of hearing about overnight successes, aren’t you? Sure, it makes for a great headline when an unknown band has a hit song, an author hits the bestseller list, or a guy at the office moves up into management in record time. It makes for an interesting story. In an ideal world, we all want to reach our goals and become smashing successes overnight without all the hard work, tears, and sweat. But there’s a problem with that narrative.

Nine times out of ten, that overnight success was decades in the making. We just don’t often hear about it because it’s not the exciting part of the story. The authors who hit it big with their first published book have spent years crafting their skills. They’ve had dozens of manuscripts and drafts rejected before hitting it big with their overnight success. The same goes for your favorite band, actor, director, and even the guy doing what you’re doing, who seems to climb the ladder of success much faster, skipping rungs along the way.

Success doesn’t happen overnight, and you shouldn’t expect it to happen for you. It takes work and time. That’s why some of the best basic success skills you can develop are patience and persistence. The two work hand in hand. If you can make yourself chip away and make a little progress every single day, and have the patience to wait for that work to accumulate, you will be able to reach even the loftiest goals.

Be prepared to be in this for the long run. Go ahead and set those lofty success goals for all areas of your life. Then draft a roadmap that will lead you to your goal. You’ll need one for each major goal you want to accomplish. Work on some milestones along the way to mark your progress.

With that done, your next step is to determine what you need to do on a daily or weekly basis to work towards that first milestone. Next, your patience and persistence come into play. Get in the habit of working towards your goals regularly. Having the roadmap and steps will help you figure out what you should do. Patience and persistence will help you make sure it gets done.

Milestones help you realize and celebrate your progress. Think of them as frequent reminders that persistence pays off and that it requires patience to reach those really big goals.