You’ve all inspired me to write my own goals. Thank you and feel free to check them out: http://melissayuaninnes.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/writing-goals-est-2010/

Excellent post, James.

I’m not sure I believe in truly impossible dreams. Very hard to achieve goals, yes. Goals I may never acheive, yes, but not truly impossible dreams. I need to know that if I do my part, the dream is possible, if unlikely. So I do set very difficult goals for myself, but I always have a plan, a roadmap, that stands a reasonable chance of eventually leading me to that goal.

Paul R Kovatch said, “The difference between a goal and a dream is a plan.”

Harvey Mackay added just a bit to this. “The difference between a goal and a plan is a plan and a deadline.”

I want to write a bestselling novel is a dream.

I’m going to read and study every bestselling novel that matches my style and reading interest for the nest three months. I’m also going to study writing techniques, and read all the advice I can from bestselling writer. Then I’m going to sit down from eight until ten each evening, six days per week, without fail, until the novel is finished, is a goal.

This doesn’t mean I’ll achieve the goal, but it does mean I’m giving myself the best chance of success.

This applies to all walks of life, for me. “I want to own a beach house in Hawaii” is a dream.

I’m going to continue educating myself, I’g going to study the finacial success of this wealthy person and that wealthy person, I’m going to make myself a person who is infinitely employable in a high paying area, I’m going to keep my credit clear, I’m going to work one more hour than anyone else at my place of employment, and I will for ten years, put back ten percent of my income for teh day I want to buy that house, is a goal.

I have very few independent goals. Each is direct link in the chain leading to the ultimate goal, the “impossible” dream.

When one impossible dream has been achieved, I find another, and set a detailed list of goals, build a new chain, to get me to that next impossible dream.

And as you mention with Nora Roberts, sometimes you have to know when to give up one dream for another. There’s no shame in say, “Well, that didn’t work. What else can I do with my life?”

I think if you think you can achieve your dream, you’re not dreaming big enough, Melissa. So that dream must make you nervous or worried or fearful. Not that you’re afraid of the dream, but you’re afraid you might not achieve it. I think it has to be so big you have trouble wrapping your brain around it. The carrots and sticks come from the goals, not the dream. That’s the difference. I like your motto, though.

In any case, thanks for making me think. I posted my new mission statement to my goal-setting group with my addendum, “Saving the world, one story at a time.” That might be sufficiently large.