Set for yourself the ideal of perfection in your calling—­being sure that it is Nature’s calling.  Then let your dreams become beliefs; let your imaginings develop into faith.  Complete the process by resolving to make that belief come true.  Then go ahead and make it come true.  Keep your resolution bright.  Never let it rust.  Burnish it with work—­untiring, unhasting, unyielding work.

Work—­that is the magic word.  In these four letters all possibilities are wrapped up.  “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”  Or let us paraphrase the sacred page and say—­Work and you will win.  Work to your ideal.  If you never reach it—­and who can achieve perfection?—­you surely will approach it.

Do not be impatient of your progress.  If, to your own measurement, you seem to be moving slowly, remember that, to the observation of your fellow men, you are making substantial and satisfactory advance and, to the eye of your rivals, you are proceeding with unreasonable speed.

Don’t pay any attention to how fast you are getting on but go ahead and get on.  Keep working.  And work with all your might.  How wise the Bible is:  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”  And keep on doing it—­persist—­persist—­persist.  Again the Bible:  “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings.”  Do not fear hard knocks.  They are no sign that you will not finally win the battle.  Indeed, ability to endure in silence is one of the best evidences that you will finally prevail.

Yes, put yourself into your work—­and put all of yourself into your work.  Having done that, be content with your effort—­do not fret.  If all you do yields the fruit you hope for, do not fret while that fruit is ripening.  On the other hand, if your labor comes to nothing, still do not fret.  A like fate has fallen upon uncounted millions before you and will come to unnumbered myriads after you.  If you have done your best you have done better than the man who has done more than you but who has not done his best.

And so, whatever the outcome, start out with this rule and keep it to the end.  For nothing wastes your powers so much as apprehension.  The hardest work, if done with common sense, is after all a tonic.  But fear lest that work will not yield you as much as you wish is a sort of irritating cocaine of character, numbing and deadening all of your powers and at the same time lashing your mind and nerves with the knotted thongs of unhappiness.  Besides, fretting is so trivial, so little, so commonplace.  Fail if you must, but do not be contemptible.

He who worries not only poisons the very fountains of his own strength but arouses in the world’s attitude toward him a sort of sneering pity.  So the very first thing that I have to suggest to you is that you should be a man in all your doings and throughout your whole career.