Weeks 1526 and 1527

I am once again thinking of dropping Japanese as a priority. It is the loosest of my priorities and a nice to have instead of a need to have. 

I want to be really good at my job. Undeniably good at it. 

I am thinking of making work an even larger priority than it already is so I can increase my skills and progress that much faster over the next handful of years. 

My fear is that I drop Japanese again, end up missing it and wanting to reprioritize it.

I am also feeling that I am not going to be quite as proficient as I was hoping when we get to go to Japan and that it’s going to take a lot of resources to reach the level of proficiency that I want to reach. 

While I’m okay with using resources for self-development, I worry that’s not a great priority at this point in time. 

If I do drop Japanese, it just means that I would not be as proactive in my studies - I likely would still watch anime and listen to content. 

The time spent there would mostly be poured back into my work through prioritization of getting more certifications and making myself the stand out leader on our team. 

I was doing the math today and we could put ourselves in a great position if I put a large emphasis on my career before we have a child. 

Assuming I make good decisions, of course. 

I have also been feeling a tremendous lack of progress with the gym. I have been losing weight, as anticipated, but feel like I haven’t seen nearly as many striations as I did the last time I was 220.

Last time, I felt huge. 

This time, small. 

Yet I have more veins in my arms and my legs than I have previously. 

I took a video this morning and in some ways I was pleasantly surprised. In others, I saw exactly how far off I was. 

I measured my arms, stomach, and thighs and found that I have dropped 5 cm since the last time I measured my legs last October. 

My waist and arms were also smaller. 

Now, I haven’t been eating much in the way of carbs and likely have significantly depleted glycogen stores but it’s a watch point for me to say the least. 

With that, I am going to start refeeding and start a lean bulk. 

I feel like I learned a lesson the hard way with my approach and kind of feel like I have squandered the past year. 

I also think I can recover and use this as a learning lesson to mitigate the likelihood of this happening again. 

As long as I learn, the time hasn’t been wasted and I believe I can recover relatively quickly. 

I have also been doing a progressively great job of taking the dogs on more walks and longer walks. This has been great for all of us, though the dogs seem to be getting greedier… The more I do with them, the more they want to do. 

I can’t blame them. 

I want to give them good lives and two walks a day plus time with them feels like a pretty low threshold. 

That’s where today’s string of decisions that I have repeatedly talked about and not acted on come into play - it’s time to lean further into training the dogs. 

Ellie may have puppies next year and we would happily sacrifice travel for the right addition to our family. With that, I would like the dogs to be dialed in. 

Plus, I find myself really bored on the weekends so if I can fill it with work, lifting, and dog training, I can keep a lot of us entertained. 

I’m being more intentional in general but not in a tiring way. 

I have been consistently cleaning our kitchen, making sure our bed is made, cleaning my office. It sounds like a bunch of little stuff but it’s been really filling my cup and making me feel on top of it. 

I also love the feeling of our house being put together and knowing that it positively impacts Syd.