Having childhood dreams and life goals can determine what your future holds. During childhood, most children achieve dreams that may be unattainable, such as being a Rockstar, playing for the MLB, or being a famous fashion designer; but they also provide realistic dreams. Some realistic dreams that children aspire to include: riding the tallest roller coaster, swimming with dolphins, or becoming a doctor. I have learned that childhood dreams can help realize life goals, all that needs to be encouraged is perseverance, tenacity, hard work ethic and determination. Although achieving goals is not easy and requires hard work and patience, having and achieving life goals is of the utmost importance because having goals can create a bright future and create structure in your life. So far in my life I have had many dreams and achieved many of my life goals. As a child, my biggest dream was to one day become a famous singer. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Something that has been a dream of mine since I was a lively five-year-old was attending my mother's Alma Marter, the University of Redlands. However, my most significant goal in life is to help society. I hope that achieving my dreams and life goals will provide me with a life full of happiness and value. For starters, childhood dreams are important to the future we have. As a child, dreams range from the unachievable to the realistic. Some children dream of becoming rock stars, while others dream of becoming chefs. But something I've learned is that they don't just include being something, but also doing something, like climbing Everest or traveling to England. In The Last Lecture, Pausch talks about a childhood dream he had to play in the NFL, and while he never made it, he learned some very valuable lessons. The main importance of dreams from childhood is that they can teach life lessons along the way. During The Last Lecture, Pausch learned many lessons, but there are two that really stood out to me: dealing with critics and gaining self-esteem. According to Pausch, “When you see yourself doing something bad and no one bothers to tell you anymore, it's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones who tell you they still love you, care about you, and want to make you better” (Pausch 37). Many times on the journey towards achieving dreams people will face criticism and having high self-esteem can be helpful in overcoming criticism. High self-esteem is a crucial part of achieving dreams because it gives you the personal motivation to continue pursuing those dreams until they are realized. In the chapter "I Never Made It to the NFL", Pausch explains the importance of having high self-esteem and that it is something that comes from within and is a motivating factor in achieving dreams. Dreams are not always the easiest tasks to achieve, especially if they can be far-reaching, but if you are motivated and willing to work for it, they can be achieved. Pausch says, “You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you keep repeating the process” (Pausch 37). Having dreams as a child is important because it helps pave the way for a bright future, just like setting life goals. Secondly, setting goals in life is very important and is helpful in having a fulfilling life. There are many ways that having life goals can impact your life. One of the main ways having goals canbeing useful is what you get (Latham 126). Life goals set a path for one's life and have many beneficial factors including preventing distraction, focusing, helping motivate, and helping measure personal progress. Goals are what help us move forward in everyday life. They are the initial steps of each of our journeys and they are also the steps that conclude them. It is crucial to understand the importance and significance of goal setting in life. In Flourishing: The Positive Person and the Good Life, Robert Emmons states: “Goals are essential components of a person's experience of their life as meaningful and contribute to the process by which people interpret their life as meaningful or useful.” (Emmons 107 ). According to many experts on the importance of having life goals, setting lifelong goals helps ensure a fulfilling and meaningful life. Many of them agree that most people's primary goal in life is to be happy. Considering the importance of setting life goals, many experts have also expressed the importance of the type of goals you set and that it is best to set goals that last over time. In Latham's passage from The Motivational Benefits of Goal-Setting, he says, "Goal-setting theory also asserts that people with specific difficult goals (often called "stretch" goals) perform better than those with vague goals such as " do your best." or specific easy goals” (Latham 126). Having life goals has had a great impact on my life's journey so far and they continue to guide me along a better path. As a result, one of my childhood dreams that For me is more significant is that I have always wanted to become a famous singer. Some of my earliest memories as a child date back to the days when I was in a children's choir. I have always loved singing and it has always given me so much happiness considerable problem, that this dream of mine is not very realistic, since the statistics for following my dream and becoming a famous singer are very low Myths and realities of professional singing, Stapp says: "Professional singing can bring great rewards, but rarely a large remuneration is one of them., ... singing is grueling work that requires enormous sacrifices along the way" (Stapp 2). Unfortunately, there are many negative factors to consider as I pursue my dream of becoming a famous singer. Some negative factors are the ability to earn a living, paparazzi, lack of privacy, criticism, rumors, constant travel, lack of time for family, trust and perfection at all times. These seem like very discouraging factors, but they didn't discourage me. So far I haven't achieved this dream, but I'm definitely pursuing it. One of the main reasons why I haven't pushed harder to achieve my dream is that as I've gotten older, I get so nervous and anxious that usually nothing comes out when I try to sing in front of an audience. But this is just one obstacle in my journey to reach my dream. I will continue singing lessons and start recording my own music. Even though I know this is one of those far-out dreams, I will continue to try to become a famous singer through hard work and dedication, and even though the possibility of failure is high, I don't know what I can do if I don't try. As Elbert Hubbard said: “There is no failure except when you no longer try.” In addition to the dreams I have, attending the University of Redlands has been one of my dreams. Ever since I was a child, I have wanted to attend the University of Redlands. Growing up as the daughter of a previous Bulldog, I attended many events andschool functions. Every year we attended the annual Fourth of July fireworks display and I always thought how spectacular it would be to attend in Redlands. I was very devastated in high school as I watched my dream of attending the University of Redlands fade due to my low grades. However, hope was restored when I decided to return to college and am now an honor student. I knew I would apply to the University of Redlands, because I can't imagine continuing my education at another school. I wanted to attend a school that would help me strive for excellence and succeed, and I know the University of Redlands will do just that. Surprisingly, I just made this dream come true. On June 1, I accepted an Academic Excellence Scholarship to attend Redlands this fall and start in September. By achieving this dream, I have learned that I can do anything if I put my mind to it and am willing to work hard to achieve it. Ultimately, the most important goal I have, besides being happy, is to help society become a more great place. The best way I have conceived to achieve this goal is to become President of the United States. I know this goal will be incredibly difficult to achieve. When I tell people that I wouldn't be president one day, they think I'm dreaming or exaggerating, but they don't know my reasoning behind it. I want to become President to make our country equal for all people and give a voice to all the people who have been silenced in the past. Now, this is my expansive goal, but I've learned the importance of setting smaller, more attainable goals, to achieve my expansive goal. To achieve my goal of becoming President and helping people in society, I have set some small-scale goals as benchmarks in my journey. The first goal I want to achieve is to obtain my degree in Science, specializing in law. My next goal is to attend a top law school and become a criminal defense attorney. Once I become a defense attorney, I want to spend my free time working pro bono at the Innocence Project to help wrongfully convicted criminals be released from prison. Eventually, I want to enter politics and be a senator from California to gain a better understanding of politics. Experts on the importance of setting goals say that it is important to set goals that are: challenging, specific, meaningful and measurable. In Goal Setting: Who, Why, How?, Turkay discussed how important these factors together are in achieving goals and concluded his passage with: “As [people] go through the cycle of setting, regulating, and achievement of goals, they will become adept at assessing their abilities to engage in these tasks and develop their self-regulation skills, which is one of the key skills for the 21st century [individual]” (Turkay 9). achieve these goals as I am currently working on my degree, but I have already taken the first step in my quest to achieve my goal I know I have set high goals for myself, but the only person who can stand in my way is me and I intend to persevere despite all the obstacles in my path. In conclusion, it is surprisingly important how childhood dreams and life goals can impact someone's life. Unfortunately, the question isn't whether you have childhood dreams or life goals, it's what you do to achieve them. Childhood dreams can be the stepping stone to a successful life. To make your dreams come true and achieve your goals, there, 42(1), 8-13.