Improving your chess, or anything else, is pretty simple (not easy!).
➡️Do What Matters
➡️Do It Well
➡️Do It Consistently
So, why is then not everybody improving their chess and living happily ever after?
- Not everybody is ready to do hard things.
- Life often gets in the way and it is easy to fall for temptations instead of sticking to a simple plan.
And when that happens, some students get easily discouraged and give up. While others get back on track and push through. So, what is the main difference between the two groups?
Expectations
The more I learn about chess improvement and myself, the more I am convinced that wrong expectations are a huge factor in unsuccesful improvement journeys.
What I observe with so many students, readers and viewers who give up, or struggle to improve, is that they have some very high and unrealistic expectations. There is this hope, that once they figure out how chess improvement works, it will somehow be easy.
No more blunders.
No more plateaus.
No more hard days.
But that’s just not what reality looks like. And so when an inevitable bad day comes, those people struggle way more and think something is wrong.
Why does this feel hard?
How come I still blunder?
Something must be wrong with me and/or my training!
The Reality (For Everyone)
The thing is, even experts of certain topics struggle with the implementation of what they write about. Take Greg McKeown, author of the Bestseller and one of my favorite books, Essentialism is an example. You might think that the guy who wrote the book Essentialism is just the perfect essentialist who never struggles anymore.
Wrong.
Here is what he said in an interview with Tim Ferris:
All of us are going in the wrong direction until we pause, think about it, get clear again. And so that to me, I do not feel like I’m a better Essentialist or better at applying these ideas in one sense than anybody else. Certainly not inherently, but I think I admit to it faster than maybe the average person, and I think that’s the key.
Simple improvement, essentialism, living a life aligned with your values, all of these things are like muscles.
Even if you are incredibly ripped, you need to continue going to the gym, otherwise you lose those muscles. And even if you get that chess improvement is simple, you will always need to remind yourself of that, be aware when you are drifting and readjust.
My Instincts Are So Off
I realize that when I improve anything in my life. My immediate instincts are terrible:
- Focus on the fancy thing
- Improve quickly without doing the basics
- Going for the instant win instead of patiently waiting for mistakes
As Greg put it so nicely, it is not that I am inherently better at improving things. I just got extremely good at being aware when I fall for these shortcuts and readjust way quicker than others.
The problem is, if you have this expectation that chess improvement can be solved and then easy, there is no chance you readjust. You’ll get to a point where you think “Oh, I got this!” and slowly drift away without noticing.
F Clickbait
That’s why I’m such a hater of clickbait and overpromising marketing. These two things create that illusion that you can just watch a video, buy a course, and then everything is solved for you.
Instead of highly complex but easy.
“If you just buy my secrets you will improve your game effortlessly!”
Chess improvement, and anything else, is simple but hard:
➡️Do What Matters
➡️Do It Well
➡️Do It Consistently
(but it will be hard and suck sometimes).
If you find yourself giving up early, feeling something is wrong with you or the training when things get hard, the reason might be that somewhere deep down inside, you have this belief that improving something meaningful should be easy.
That when you figure it out, get the expert secrets, you’ll get access to this insider knowledge that makes everything effortless, smooth, easy.
It is not. It will suck. And you will be tempted by fancy openings, quick tricks and lose focus for a bit.
That’s okay. Become aware of it. Get back to the basics. Stick to it long enough. That’s what improvement is about.
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.
Whenever you’re ready, here is how I can help you:
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