newbie question about self portraits...

Ok, there are times when I have no available subjects, but want to practice portrait photography. So...I use myself as the subject. This is probably a newbie question, but when I am setting up the shot, how is it that I would focus so that when I am in the shot, I appear to be focused? A lot of times, I try to focus in the area that I will position myself in, but when I review the shot I find out that the focus ended up somewhere near me, but not on me. Is there any tips on focusing when attempting to do self portraits? I know its a newbie question so I apologize in advance, but any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I saw a post not too long ago where a guy said he plugged the camera into his TV to frame and focus his shot correctly. Might be worth a go.

Set your camera to manual focus.

Yes, I did this once. I had a shiny metal pole, and I stood that vertically close to my face where I would be standing. Then I left it standing there and went to the camera, which had a lens set to manual focus. I twisted the focus ring until the metal pole was perfect. Then I set the self-timer, pushed the shutter button, and ran around to where the pole was, then pushed the pole aside before the shutter snapped.

---Bob Gross---