Some students misunderstand what I mean by saying:
“Play with good focus.”
In their minds, this means quickly getting into a state of flow, consistently. But that’s not possible. And worse, this wrong expectation is what makes good focus so much harder.
Forcing Yourself To Fall Asleep
I’m sure you know the feeling of lying in your bed, one eye on the clock, thinking “I really have to sleep now”. And the harder you try to fall asleep, the worse it gets. The same paradox happens with focus. While you can prepare for better focus and better sleep, you can’t force it.
What I mean by playing wtih good focus is to use your willpower to set up the circumstances in a way to make good focus, and maybe even a state of flow, more likely.
No notifications. No distractions. Train when your brain works best. Take breaks.
Even when you do everything right, you have days when your focus is better and days when it is worse. That’s part of the human experience. The only thing you can do is accept that and focus on what you can control.
The Magical Flow State
I recently had a rare flow experience. Playing Padel, I was totally immersed in the sport. Made nearly no mistakes, had a ton of fun and I wasn’t really thinking about what I should do. I just did it.
At the end of the match, I realized that I was in flow state. That’s very common for the flow experience: as you are totally immersed in something and lose sense of the self, you don’t realize it until it is over. Because if you would think: “Oh, I’m in flow.” that thinking about the self would already put you out of it (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi wrote a full book just on flow, highly recommend it).
The point is that flow, and good focus, are things that happen. You can’t fully control them. And the more you think “darn, I should be in a flow state by now”, the less likely it becomes.
The Process Is What Matters
This comes back to one of the key lessons I learned from my years as a professional chess player. No matter how much I want to control the outcomes, I can’t fully do it. And the harder I try, worse it gets.
So instead, I’ve learned to focus on the process. On the things I can control. For focus, that means planning training well, and organizing my surroundings.
That’s all we can do.
Keep improving,
GM Noël
PS: This article was initially sent out to my Newsletter list. If you want to get chess improvement advice for free in your inbox, join 17,000+ chess improvers by signing up for Friday Grandmaster Insights here.
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