First, let’s take a look at last year. To put it simply, I did not accomplish my goals. This year, I will be more focused so that I can accomplish what I set out to do, instead of having too many things that I don’t focus on any.

In 2014, I did not know what I wanted to focus on. I have goals to finish writing a novel, starting a business, and learn Japanese, among other things. I still want to do all of those things, but this year I am focusing on my writing. My main goal will be to finish my novel, which over the past year+ has progressed glacially slow. I am aiming for a 50,000 word novel, which is a short novel, and I am, as of this writing, slightly past the 33% mark. I didn’t work on it at all for huge chunks of last year, so this year it is becoming my main priority.

I would also like to accomplish a couple of other smaller writing goals. One of them is to update this blog more regularly. I don’t know what form that will take yet, but once I decide on the type of content, I will choose a schedule to help me get in the habit. I already have a few long posts in mind.

I also want to continue my Japanese goal. As demonstrated by the huge amount of Japan-related posts on this blog, I am deeply interested in Japan and its culture. I have a trip back to Japan coming up later this year, so I will be working to refresh on what I have already learned as well as advancing in my speaking ability.

One way to keep myself on task is that I have decided every day I need to work on one of my goals. It doesn’t have to be huge progress every day, and it doesn’t have to be every goal. So an example is that I should either practice Japanese or do some writing. In the past I have aimed very high with my goals for the year, but did not have a great way to keep myself on track throughout the year. This will help with that.

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Well after nearly 30 days, I was the one who failed. It didn’t even occur to me as I had been eating so well that week, I thought I could afford to have French toast for breakfast. But as you can see below, it was definitely against the contest rules. I always struggle with willpower and this time it was my undoing.

#brunch

A photo posted by Jeff Moeller (@jeffmoeller) on Oct 10, 2014 at 11:55am PDT

As far as I know, Lynk has still been going strong with giving up snacking and soda, and has even taken up running. Even though my willpower waned toward the end of the competition, I am glad a positive change has been made for one of us. Now I am focused on making a more positive change in my eating habits since the competition.

The post Health Challenge Results appeared first on Jeff Moeller.

I have done a lot of research on the best ways to study, and thought I should share what I am using. To learn what works best for me, I am using a bunch of different methods. At the end of the year (or whenever I out-learn these study tools) I will post an update on how things went and if I would still recommend everything I used or if I would change anything.

Human Japanese
This software is very cheap compared to something like Rosetta Stone and is designed for beginners. It’s available for PC, Mac, iOS and Android. It is a similar experience you would get from studying out of a textbook, but it is a lot more interesting to read, has audio pronunciations, stroke order animations for writing the kana, and quizzes at the ends of chapters. When I say it’s like a textbook, that is because you can’t solely rely on reading this and doing the quizzes. You also need to practice writing the kana and vocabulary.

The next two tools I am using are called spaced repetition systems or SRS. This means that the interval of time between each time you review something is increased until it is completely memorized. These software tools track this automatically so you do not need to keep track yourself of when you last reviewed each word or character. The important thing is to use these tools every day, because if you go a week between reviews, you will not only find you have an overwhelming amount to study, but you will not remember what you learned from your last session and won’t make progress on learning anything new.

Anki
This is a very popular software program you may have heard of that can be used for many purposes, although language learning is its most popular use. It is essentially flashcards with SRS built in. There are many premade decks for Japanese and other topics, and you can also create your own decks. If you are starting Human Japanese and Anki at the same time, you could create decks to correspond to the chapters in Human Japanese.

Memrise
This was actually the first spaced repetition tool I used for studying Japanese. It is similar to Anki in some ways, but it is web-based and also incorporates “mems”, or visual or text triggers to help you remember words or characters. I am still using Memrise alongside Anki, and there are many Japanese courses available. I recommend starting with Introduction to Japanese and then moving on to JLPT N5 Vocab, which is what I am working on now.

Manga (Japanese Comics)
To make studying a little more fun and because I love comics, I decided to order a few volumes of manga series that were recommended for Japanese beginners. The series I chose were Yotsuba!, Dragonball, and Shirokuma Café, based on these recommendations. You can also find links to purchase these books and other manga recommendations at that link. These series are all appropriate for children, and so have simple grammar and also have what are called furigana, which are small kana drawn above kanji characters to tell you how the character is pronounced. Of course I will need to learn these kanji eventually, but for just starting out, I think using furigana is perfectly fine. In the future I plan to read Akira, one of my favorite comic series that I have read in English.

Games
One of the early reasons I became so interested in Japan was because of video games. It is no secret that I am a lifelong gamer and some of my favorite games came from Japan. There are many games that allow you to play in Japanese, but most would be too advanced for beginners to understand. A series I think is perfect for Japanese study is Pokemon. The series is aimed at children, so everything is written in kana rather than kanji, and when text appears on the screen, you have to press a button to advance the text, so this makes it perfect for stopping to look up words you don’t know. Pokemon X/Y, the latest games in the series, allow you to select Japanese (or other languages) in the English version, so you don’t have to have a Japanese system and game to do this.

With both of the above methods, I will probably have to look up most of the text with where I am at now, but I do not mind. I think it will be a lot more motivating to want to be able to read a comic, or play a game, in Japanese without having to look anything up, than more traditional study methods.

I hope the above resources help you achieve your goals with Japanese study. Let me know how it is going for you in the comments. よろしく！

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I set goals in several different categories, and they are different from usual new year’s resolutions. The main requirement for my goals is that they have to be measurable in some way, so that I can track my progress and have a specific set of steps that need to be taken to reach them. Also, if I decide I want to change my goals or that one of them isn’t worth pursuing anymore, that’s ok. They are my goals after all.

Here is what I am working on this year:

Writing:
Finish my novel (first draft)

Business:
Make a plan for a new business venture and launch it

Travel:
Go on a trip with a friend

Learning & Lifestyle:
Read 26 books
Become N5 proficient in Japanese (N5 is the lowest level of proficiency)

Health:
Lose 20lbs of fat and maintain throughout the year
Gain at least 10lbs of muscle

I have more goals than these, but I am mostly sharing them to give you an idea of what I am aiming for, and to help you in selecting goals or categories if you want to do something similar.

But setting goals by themselves doesn’t accomplish anything. There are two more steps to make this an effective process: 1) Make them measurable 2) Review your progress throughout the year.

I only set goals that I can measure in some way. To finish my novel, I need to write 1,000 words every day and write 50,000 words total. My health goals are very numbers oriented as that gives me a way I can track my progress every day. For goals that are not able to be focused on numbers, it is important to plan milestones and deadlines. For creating a new business, I need to decide on an idea, test its viability, and promote the business to bring in customers. All of my goals have deadlines, though if I don’t meet those deadlines, it doesn’t mean I will just give up. I think finding a balance between aggressive and realistic is the best way to set a deadline.

I also recommend at least looking over your goals list once a month. This will keep you on track, and also just remind you of any you may have been putting off. You can do a more detailed review of your progress a few times a year. Then, at the end of the year, look over everything you have accomplished in the year, and what you could have done better on. Props to Chris Guillebeau for outlining this whole process.

Several of my goals are things that anyone can do, even if you never thought you could before. I hope you have not already given up on your New Year’s Resolutions, and consider transforming them into more substantial goals.

The post Goals for 2014 appeared first on Jeff Moeller.

5. Dragon Age: Inquisition
I am cautiously optimistic on this release, which is why it is number five on this list. Dragon Age: Origins, the first game in the series from BioWare, is one of my favorite games of all time. But with Dragon Age 2, they went away from what made the first game great in order to appeal to a wider audience. Dragon Age: Inquisition is supposed to return to more of the gameplay style from Origins, while introducing an even bigger world to explore. If they deliver on these promises, this could be one of my favorite games of the year; if they don’t, it could be one of the most disappointing.

4. Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
Diablo 3 has not had a very smooth lifespan so far. It was released to critical acclaim, but once players had enough time to experience all of the game’s difficulty modes, many were turned off by the game’s disappointing loot system and real money auction house, as well as the extreme difficulty of Inferno mode. With Reaper of Souls, much of this is promised to be fixed with the removal of the auction house, and it is enough to make me want to get back into the game. In addition, they are introducing the Crusader class, which can be thought of as similar to a paladin in other RPGs, the class I usually choose.

3. Pillars of Eternity
Out of the few Kickstarter games I have backed, this is by far the one I am most excited for. Pillars of Eternity is in the vein of classic computer RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, and is being developed by Obsidian, a company made up of folks who made those games. The game has beautiful hand painted backgrounds and an ambitious scope for a relatively small team working on it. As one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns for games, raising over $3 million, I am very hopeful they can deliver on all their promises and give us a modern take on classic fantasy RPGs.

2. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 2 really brought this series to a whole other level, with stunning visuals, a great story, and choices that really affected your game. The challenging combat system that was a little clunky was my biggest complaint, but now that has even been improved with a developer-released mod for the game. The Witcher 3 looks to take all of that, and add a huge open world environment rivaling the size of Skyrim from the way it sounds. I love the trend towards more games being open world, especially when it does not impact the visual fidelity, as Witcher 3 once again looks gorgeous.

1. Dark Souls II
I did not play Dark Souls until last year, and I was surprised at how much I became completely enamored with that game. It was the first time in at least several years that I was so enveloped by a game’s world, its lore and its gameplay systems. Dark Souls has the reputation of being extremely challenging, and while that is absolutely true, I do not believe that should stop anyone from experiencing it. With Dark Souls 2, the developers have promised to keep the same difficult gameplay, but streamline the experience so that there is less wasted time. Overall I have not followed much of the game’s development to keep as much of it as possible a surprise when it comes out. You play as a new character in a completely new area of the world, and there are some minor tweaks to the gameplay systems. This is the only title on this list that I will be playing on console (PS3), because the PC version will not be released until at least two weeks after the console version. I can’t wait to see what this game has in store for us.

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5. The Last of Us
Many peoples’ most anticipated game of the year, developer Naughty Dog struck a great balance between the amazing storytelling of the Uncharted series and a refinement in combat not present in their previous releases. The addition of stealth and being able to choose how you want to handle combat encounters really adds great variety to the game. It is not without flaw, however. For a post-apocalyptic world in which resources are supposed to be scarce, there are too many crafting materials and ammo scattered throughout the world to really feel like you have to conserve your items. This is still a highly recommended game and one of my favorite of 2013.

4. Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate
Monster Hunter is among the popular game series in Japan, but it doesn’t have the same mainstream appeal to Western gamers. It also has an infamous learning curve which requires players to invest a significant amount of time just to become competent. However the game has a very fun progression once you invest that initial time to learn how to play. Unfortunately the game is basically a glorified Wii game, and the underwater missions are usually frustrating. The game is also much more fun with a group of friends rather than playing alone, which can be a positive or negative, depending on your own situation. Let’s just hope Monster Hunter 4 is released outside of Japan.

3. Animal Crossing: New Leaf
While I was highly anticipating this title after hearing impressions from players in Japan, where it was released first, I did not expect it to become one of my favorite games of the year. This was my first experience with the Animal Crossing series, so what might have been old features for other players was all new to me. The game is incredibly charming, and has so much to do as the mayor of your town. The game makes you want to play every day to check on your town and perform seemingly mundane tasks like watering flowers. While the description of Chores: The Game might not sound very exciting, if you have a 3DS, this game is a must play.

2. Tomb Raider
Before this game’s release, I was not even planning on playing it. The game had a botched marketing campaign which made it look like a total departure from the Tomb Raider series and more like an Uncharted clone with a weak protagonist. Luckily, that was not the case. While the game was still a linear adventure, it had some open areas to explore, hidden items to uncover, and tombs to raid. And Lara was not the badass adventurer we were used to, but she was still a strong character who grew throughout the game. This game’s gameplay is just extremely fun, both exploring the world, and engaging in combat. It was very difficult for me to not place this game as number one; I really hope you play it.

1. Fire Emblem: Awakening
This is probably the first time either a handheld title or a Japanese RPG have been my number one favorite game. But Fire Emblem: Awakening is definitely deserving of that. Once again, this was my first experience with the Fire Emblem series, and now I am interested in playing the past games on Wii and Gamecube. At first it took me a number of hours to really get into the game. I had never played a strategy RPG before, but once I learned the best tactics to use, I couldn’t put the game down. It has a very well written story and tons of content – over 20 hours if you only play the main story. The game makes you care about each character you choose to use because of the existence of permanent death and the upgrade and class systems. And yes, I restarted a mission every time one of my characters died. If you only play one of the games on my list, I hope you play Fire Emblem: Awakening.

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