Cars X Girl

One of my goals will be patience... Also key in my 365-day photo project!

While there are a bunch of arguments against New Year’s Resolutions, I don’t see how it can hurt to have a few big goals that you’d like to work on in the coming year. Of course, there are often rules to how to form good goals… We’ve all heard of SMART goals, right?

Well, I can’t always say that SMART goals work, either. At least not for me, or not for everything. And one thing I’d like to work on in the coming year is my patience. Who couldn’t use more of that? I know I definitely can!

Why patience?

I tend to get an idea and then I want to go and work on it right away. The more passionate I am about the idea, the more excited I am to get started! Certainly not a bad trait to have, save for the fact that I have a horrible time doing anything that really isn’t in line with my interests. (Why I struggle so much with homework sometimes.)

With a lot of projects, though, I can’t just go out and get it done in a day or two. Some things take a lot of time to build, and it’s these things that I sometimes loose patience with. After I work hard towards something for a while, I want to see results! But the results aren’t always the spectacular results I wanted to see… And I end up a bit discouraged. Thankfully, I don’t tend to quit on projects I want to do, but I can suffer some setbacks and may temporarily suspend progress even more.

Patience is important with things like….

My project cars — I get frustrated sometimes because I feel like I never have enough of the money that I need to buy the parts I’d like for my cars. Throwing together the engine swap for my 180SX was crazy, but then I had to have the patience to pick up from the total destruction of the savings for the car and move forward… It wasn’t easy for me, but I just take it one day at a time sometimes. I also have to be patient when I want things for the Miata and the 180, it’s hard for me to afford a lot for both when I don’t earn a whole lot!

My blogging — This is where I want to have the most patience possible. While I’ve been blogging for nearly two years now, this particular blog has only been around since last August really. In the big scheme of things, it’s a very young blog. I’m very happy with the amount of traffic that I’ve already gotten, but of course I want to improve my blog, my writing and showing that girls can do it too! Of course, that won’t happen if I don’t have the patience to stick with it…

My education — It’s pretty much a thorn in my side, to be honest. With us now moving in a few months, I won’t be around long enough to finish up my degree at my current school as a traditional student. I don’t have that many options to go through, but it’s already been overwhelming trying to figure it all out.

How I think patience will help these:

My project cars — Hopefully I’ll be able to set tiny goals and achieve them, like how I was buying parts for the Miata for a bit. I’d say, “Okay, now I want to get the carbon fiber mirrors,” and just work on that. In a few months, I had my mirrors! Setting bite-sized goals helps keep me patient because I can see that I’m still moving in the right direction.

My blogging — I’m certainly hoping to turn this into something, or at least use it to find something that may turn into something. (I can see myself keeping it up regardless because it’s fun for me! Hopefully entertaining for others, haha.) Regardless of what happens, it helps my writing and gives me an excuse to take lots of pictures and attend as many events as possible and what not. I’m hoping to eventually move from wordpress.com to a hosted blog using wordpress.org, but it’s a lot for me to learn and understanding websites aren’t my strong point… So patience will definitely help as I make the transition to becoming a more educated blogger!

My education — Instead of transferring, I’m looking into switching majors to one that’s offered in an online-only format. This would ensure that all of my credits earned thus-far are still good and that I’ll still graduate in a somewhat-timely manner in 2011. I also won’t have to worry about snow + driving for at least the first year, or my student loans coming due without an income. (For the driving, yes, I’ve driven in snow before, but only FWD and neither of my girls have an LSD yet…. Heh.)

It’d also be great to be patient enough to find a job that’s a really good fit for me. I’m hoping to not have to rush back to work right away, because there are a ton of things I want to do after we move. (Plus we’ve been invited to an S2000 get-together/drive, in Canada, in July! I sure hope we get to go.) I certainly don’t want to miss any of the fun things we can do because of a job, ya know?

Hmmmm… Maybe I need to really work on that whole possible freelancing career, huh?

How am I going to do this?

I don’t have any concrete plans on helping me remember to be patient… All I know is that I’m just going to have to take it as it comes, and hope I can remember that I’m working on being patient! It’s really not something I can quantify, or say, “I want to be this patient by whatever date.” It’s simply an ongoing thing I will try to be conscious of so I can work on it.

What are you planning to work on this year?

Meg

Meg is a car enthusiast and Porschephile who wants to get into track racing & car collecting. She was the 2009 Rookie of the Year in her first SCCA region, has driven a Ferrari 458 Italia on a track & is building her S2000 into a street driven race car. She shares her car life at CarsxGirl.com in an effort to show that some girls play with cars just as well as the guys do. (While still being able to rock heels & a manicure just as well as any girly girl.)

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