Hello everyone!
I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while, as my journey to lvl 5 was a perilous one, and I hope it may also motivate others to continue on their study! This is my first post though (I have been lurking for a bit), so please let me know if the category is wrong etc 
A bit of background about me; English is my second language, my first being Dutch. I started my journey when 29, currently 31. I felt like I wasn’t learning something new for a while and I like watching anime a lot. This is what I made my goal, being able to watch anime without (English) subtitles.
Starting with Hiragana and Katakana
Throughout the years I have thought about doing Japanese about 3 times, but this was the first real attempt at it. I started out with Learn Hiragana: Tofugu's Ultimate Guide and worked on it for about a week until I felt confident on it. I also started on the Katakana, however these are still hazy, due to not seeing them as much. Nothing came up so far. I worked on the kana’s for about 3 weeks.
Level 1: Starting with WaniKani
At this point in time I had no idea where to start, but I read quite a lot of resource posts. I saw commonly posted that Kanji are important, due to be integral to writing and building sentences, and taking a long time. So I figured it would make sense to start here. At first I felt everything went quite slot, as I did most in the weekends with the kana’s, so I had to really change my schedule to fit it in regularly. What helped for me was always doing it after a meal, so that I could never forget it.
Level 2: Dyslexia in a new light
Level 2 was where I felt like it ramped up quite a lot in amount of items to do. My dyslexia also started to behave interesting, instead of predicting sentences it started to predict parts of characters, so I have to really focus to avoid that. In level 2 ramped down the amount of items I did every day. I changed it to 3 items per day. I also started to always pick items manually, so I can choose what looks similar and do them at the same time. When I felt like the load was not too high I would pick 3 more, which would then be additional instead of less which felt better. This speed is about a month for every level, which feels like a good pace for me.
Level 3: A small break and then a big one
During level 3 I went for 2 weeks to America for work, which meant I used the vacation mode. When coming back I had quite a lot of difficulty and would miss days occasionally. When working on level 3 I noticed that I was also stacking on a lot of vocabulary, so I took my time to do them as well. I recommend everyone to start with these early as well. They helped me a lot to remember Kanji. The images of statistics I will post on the end of this, however this is the first time I looked at wkstats.com. My reading is my weak spot, meaning is around 90% while reading is 70%. I don’t know if this is a big problem, and is something I keep in mind.
The big break came after this, I unlocked all the items and was about ready for level 4, but was hesitating a bit due to the price. This was not the main reason for the big break though. A breakup, a dead in a family, disaster in family that broke it in two and therapy, just put my Japanese study out of my mind. 5 months later I tried to get back, but my couldn’t really set my mind to it and failed to start again. Another 2 months later I felt a-lot better and booked 3 days of free time to totally commit on coming back. I had to do about 600 reviews, which for me was a lot. I used the “stop within the next 10 items button”, without it I would never be able to get back. I noticed I had to stop a bit earlier than before my mind drifted, but after these 3 days I was on track. I bought WaniKani (lifetime) and continued my study.
Level 4 & 5: Study and other resources I started on
With level 4 I had to get used having new items again, but it felt really rewarding I was being able to start again. During level 4 nothing really special happened, while reinforcing that I had to keep mindful of predicting parts of Kanji, and really take my time reading them properly.
During level 5 I felt like I wanted to add some other resources to my study. I started working on particles (still working on them now) and started rewatching an anime I have seen already, but then with Japanese subtitles, as I read that this will help a lot with comprehension as well. I still have the feeling I understand almost nothing of it, but I do notice that I process the Japanese much more than when I had English subtitles on it. At the end of level 5 I also burned my first items, which is very satisfying as well.
This was my Journey until now, I don’t know what the future will bring, working on Japanese is very satisfying though! If you are reading this when you have or had a big break, know it is possible to get back! Even failing it a couple of times is not the end, as you will learn from it as well.
Here are the images of my stats
That you may have a nice day! A post with tips& tricks, you sharing your (similar) struggles, or a nice post to cheer me on is very appreciated. 
Maarten
