Well its that time of the year again where most people go out of there way to set new years resolutions whether its the usual lose weight or to become a millionaire most of us have set some sort of resolution in the past only to find a few months later we have given up and completely forgot about our resolutions, which then leads to "oh I'll wait for next year and it will be my new years resolution". We set our self's up to fail waiting so long to put some sort of plan into action to get to were we want to be, as a wise man once said via twitter Dannychoo don't put of something for the new year instead start it now or you'll never get it done. Thus leading onto the topic of the post usually I would note down my resolutions for the years as I tend to be pretty good at sticking with them but instead I'm going to be more vague and list what I want to do/accomplish this will give me a reminder of everything I'd like to get done otherwise I'd probably forget some. Some may just look like a normal resolution but the difference is I won't be putting them off for a year if I don't get them done straight away I will refer back here and when time allows I'll start the next on the list. Blog More Yes something I've not been doing lately for various reasons but will be pushing to post much more regularly on my language progress and my self improvement in general not to mention any other ramblings I can think of. JLPT lvl2 Aiming to take the JLPT lvl2 at the end of the year seen as I missed the one for last year I'm going to push myself for this as a good challenge is the quickest way to learn. Improve fitness/weight lifting Something I've been doing for a while now you only get one body so it should be looked after. I've always been underweight for my size and have gained some weight over the last year through weight lifting but this year I intend to take it up a level and finally get to the build I want, especially now I'm training with Kettlebells very fun and physically/mentally challenging form of weight lifting. Take up climbing Always wanted to try this looks so much fun climbing on those indoor rock faces so will be giving this a go. Go Abroad Even with my love for travel and seeing new things I've still yet to leave the country my plan is to at least visit one foreign country this year even if its just in Europe. Get a tattoo Yes some people don't like them and yes they can look ugly but personally think some look very nice and have always wanted the Kanji's for 決心 (determination) on one of my shoulder blade's. Learn to read 한글 Hangul A...

An old photo back from 2005's trip to Whitby in the UK going back there shortly so will take many more photos. Mentioned in a previous post that I would put up my reasons why we should see the world, whether its a new place in our own country or some far distant land we can all experience new things and grow from these experiences. Even in the places closest to home we can find a different way of living, meet people that can change our way of thinking or make us view things with a different perspective, see sites and relics of the past expand our reality we can all obtain a deeper understanding of the world. Try different foods and experience different cultures all expand our reality in some way basically keeping an open mind will make us all more well rounded individuals and not stuck in some bubble of our everyday selves. As I'm sure we all want to try 納豆（natto) fermented soy bean hmm yummy. I really cannot understand how people can go to some foreign country and not try any of the local cuisine always going out of there way to find the nearest KFC because of fear of the unknown perhaps, better to have tried it than to never have tried it at all I always say, we all need to go out of our comfort zone to experience new things how do you know those fish eyes on a plate wont be nice might be the best thing you've ever tried at least gives you something to talk about with the locals if nothing else. Again this stems to the people that stick to there holiday resort, hotel, apartment whatever it may be and barely leave or just stick to the tourist spots this also seems to be down to the fear of the unknown that they don't know the language or that they won't get a long with anybody. Really how do you know until you try there's going to be natives who can understand you and I'm sure many will get a long with you, you will probably learn much more about the country and it's way of life this way and will probably find out many interesting places and facts that the average tourist will never know about with the potential of making some good friends a long the way. Anybody have any interesting holiday experiences they'd like to share? From Public Whitby

Next up is how I'm getting on with the weight training, since I started back in February I think it was, I've come a long way from being a skinny bean pole who could barely lift anything that could be considered to have a substantial weight, when I first started I was curling like 8kg and doing way too many different exercise per session 4 times a week I was basically running my self into the ground even with the small amount of weight I even had the complete wrong idea on how to do sets, basically after every set you should take about 60-90 second brake (good for Hypertrophy) for maximum testosterone production then go on to your next set after completing your sets for one exercise you jump to the next.The big mistake we were doing is we did each set of an exercise concurrently, no rest, then we would rest for 60 seconds and start the next set of all exercises we were doing more harm than good basically wrecking havoc on our nervous system. Anyway the mistakes we made and the things we learned over the past 5 months or so can wait for a future post as there were more ^^Any woo I gained a few pounds of muscle over the first few months of training averaging about 1 pound of weight each week which is about what your aiming for if your wanting to gain muscle and not fat this was helped by my increase of calorie and protein intake helped by the weight gainer protein shakes took some time to get used to the banana flavor but its grown on me.Then typically when I was starting to see change in my physique I injured my right deltoid may have been caused by not warming up adequately or just from general wear and tear as weight lifting for hypertrophy puts a lot of strain on your body, this took about 3-4 weeks to get back to shape although I did no weights in that time I kept my weight/muscle by keeping my protein intake high and calories clean.Then finally I could start again this time reading much more into what routines, exercises were best for me being a hard gainer, the basic idea for us hard gainers and beginner weight lifters alike is to do mostly compound exercises for the first month or so these include the bench press, deadlift, squats, military press etc on alternate days 3 times a week the idea is to build over all mass and increase strength rapidly then later when your bulked up you define the muscles by doing the non compounds e.g. bicep curls etcOne tip if its strength and size your after you need to constantly be increasing the weight you lift find your perfect weight that you can only manage around 6-8 reps per set with and each sessions try to add a little more weight from everything I've read over the months this is ...

Well over the coming days I plan to do post some updates on my progress with my goals that I listed a while ago, to recap these were.Learn JapaneseTo keep improving my Japanese and hopefully step it up a gear.Weight TrainingTo improve my overall physique to basically not look like a beanpole.Healthy Body and MindGenerally to improve the way I live and eat always believe you should look after yourself as you only get one body no point when your 50 starting to eat healthy because your obese and can barely move from all the crap you've eat and drunk over the years same goes for the mind.SavingsOne thing that I've always had trouble with is saving now that I realise I've gotta save if I ever plan to live my dream of going to Japan for a year to enjoy myself and job hunt.Other goals I planned to set were to expand my reality in general experience as many different things as I could and to also network more in and out of my career.- Body and Mind -For the first post I'm going to do a quick rundown on my body and mind goal, overall this is going pretty well most days I've kept with the eating healthy at least having some fruit and veg everyday, although I have had a bad habit of taking trips to KFC and the local Chinese a few times a week as they tend to be more convenient and a quick way of getting my required calorie/protein intake to keep adding more body weight this needs to be pretty high especially as I tend to be pretty active with 3 weight sessions a week and lots of cardio in between.I've also started to take much more care on the way I look for years I had the same set of clothes and would only buy new clothes when they were worn thin but now if I see something I like (or my wife does) I'll go out my way to buy it, caring about the way you look doesn't just help change what people think about you it also makes you feel better and more confident.On the mind front I think this has improved from before I'm generally feeling much happier and have a huge renewed interest in my Japanese language studies, web development and technology in general. Everyday I get closer to my trip to Japan even if it is years away planning for it now helps stop my interest waning and keep me motivated and happy.Next up Weight Lifting

From Chester ZooFrom Chester ZooWell thought I would show a few photo's from a trip I made the other week and have a little talk about being content at were you are in life. I know most of us at one time or another have hit a wall of self improvement the point were life seems to be flying by and before you know it another year has passed and you still sat watching your favorite TV program wishing that you had gone ahead with that trip to China or put off learning that musical instrument that you always wanted to learn, and for what? the old I didn't have time or it can wait a week/month/year whatever the excuse may be.From Chester ZooFrom Chester ZooCum on do you really think that you have no time its pretty amazing the amount we can get done in a day if we put our mind to do we really need to watch a half baked show on TV that you have no real interest or the classic "I'm tired after work so dammit if I'm going to be doing anything" just a couple of examples of the many excuses most of us make at one time or another.From Chester ZooI've been a victim of this many times after a long day at work I'll get home and say to myself "whoa tiring day I've earned a brake everything is going to have to wait" If you enjoy something is it really that much of a chore to do the things that you like whether its learning a new language, playing an instrument or planning that month trip to China just remind yourself what your aiming for and be sure to enjoy it.From Chester ZooNow onto my point, what we don't realize is we start to become content with were we are, our daily routines even if we are not enjoying ourselves it can become very difficult for us to get up and do the stuff we have always wanted to, why? because its easier its easier to mope around doing the same routine day in day out being content can be one of the worst things for our productivity, I'm not saying being content is bad on the contrary if your very happy with were you are and have done everything you want to then your happily content which is great just don't get stuck in the trap, make sure you evaluate your contentedness every so often and decide if there is anything you should be doing now not tomorrow but now.From Chester ZooYou really don't want to look back in 20 years time and think wow there was so much I wanted to do but never did, time fly's' whether your happy with your contentedness or unhappy with it just going along with the flowFrom Chester ZooFrom Chester Zoo

Recently when I started to learn Hangul I noticed how easy learning another languages characters/alphabet actually is, now a few years ago this would have been a different story before all the meta skills that I've picked up along the way while learning Japanese.In little over a week I've learned how to read and write 한굴 and this is with missing days here and there, but if it wasn't for Anki and the huge amounts of shapes/variations I've seen while studying Kanji/Kana I doubt that I would have done it so fast with a 100% retention.This all comes down to meta skills basically smaller skills that you pick up along the way to learning the main skill that your after e.g. Japanese I've picked up how and what an SRS is which basically helps me never forget material and using mnemonics to remember characters, all skills that will potentially stay with me for a life time and will keep on helping me in the future.Also the other side to it is that in the process of learning another language other languages become easier to learn this comes down to the fact that your brain becomes more used to handling the data that you feed it i.e. this and this make up the structure of a sentences or this this and this make up this shape which forms a Kanji, basically your training your mind to get good at language learning. Thus why a lot of people who know a second language from when there very young find it much easier to learn more languages, they've processed so much information giving there brain more ways to just 'click' with the information that its given.To sum up if you have the opportunity to learn new skills then dive in learn all the processes along the way, learn all the techniques to mastering the target skill that your after, as you can guarantee one day you will be glad you did if nothing else it will make you a more rounded individual.Another great article explaining meta skills can be found here또봐요

Well i often here people saying that its generally a bad idea to set yourself too many goals or resolutions whatever you want to call them, but in my opinion setting yourself many goals can actually be advantageous.The general consensus on why setting more than a few goals for yourself at time is bad tends to be that you get over worked, burned out etc and end up completely giving up after only a short period of time, now if we look at two common examples of resolutions people set lets say smoking and losing weight pretty common as I'm sure you will agree people will often set these goals at the same time often at the new year, which they are both pretty big lifestyle changes giving up something that your body is so used to, thus why a lot of people find it difficult to complete both goals they would be better off setting only one and the other later. Obviously everybody varies and people with greater will power may be able to manage this.Now onto why I think its a good idea to set many goals all at once say for example something like my own personal list I have keeping fit, learning a language and saving money to name but a few which many of these I set around the same time after hitting a stage of wanting to improve myself, so far I've managed to stick with these although I have dropped some along the way i.e. a while ago i set myself a goal to learn powershell scripting not hugely difficult but my interest waned and without even realizing it became a failed goal. There's also been a few others I set around the time of my self improvement phase which I've lost site of but all in all I've kept going strong.To say I set myself around 10 goals or so of which I've only dropped around 3-4 of those over the last 5-6 months and the others are still going strong, I think I've done pretty well now if I had only set 1-2 goals which might have taken say 2-3 months to do for a short term goal with the possibility of one of those being dropped I don't think I would get as much self improvement in the time than I would with multiple goals so potentialy wasted time.Choosing your goalsHow to choose your goals for the best retention this can be down to each persons willpower and motivation but a general idea is to keep them varied maybe have 1-2 that could be called major lifestyle change like not having a daily trip to Burger King order everything large and instead having a salad, then perhaps set the rest of your goals as mini ones i.e. get an extra half hours sleep a night and/or setting yourself long term self improvement goals like learning a language, saving for a holiday or improving your image the ones that don't take ...