Follow these steps properly and you should be well set! Here is what you will need to do this
Rubbing Alchohol, Lens Cleaner anti-static tissues, cotton balls. All this can be purchased from a local pharmacy.
1) Use the rubbing alcohol or Isopropyl Alcohol (91% - the higher the percentage the better) and clean the base of the cooler with the cotton balls. This is to ensure no dirt particles or other materials are sticking to the base of the cooler. Give a minute for it to dry.
2) Squeeze a small amount of thermal compound on the base of the cooler.
3) Use a credit card or something similar and evenly spread the thermal compound all over the base of the cooler. Make sure that it is spread all over, it doesnt matter if there is excess compound at some places at this point of time.
4) (The best anti-static paper would be a soft lens cleaner). Use this anti-static paper and polish the base of the cooler with a soft touch. Do this in such a way that you remove all the excess compound on the cooler until you are left with a very fine haze of the thermal compound on the cooler base.
5) Repeat steps 1 to 4 in the exact manner on the CPU as well.
6) At this point of time you will be left with a cooler and a CPU that have a fine haze of thermal compound on it. Now using some thin object put a very very small amount of the thermal compound in the middle of the cpu (The amount of thermal compound that you put here should not exceed the size of a grain of rice).
7) Now mount the CPU on the motherboard and lock it. Install the cooler and make sure that you get the correct position on the first try itself and there is hardly any movement once the cooler is on the top of the CPU.
And that's it.