How chess can help you in your life (part 1)

Many people ask me why adults start playing chess or want to become better at chess and pay money for chess lessons. One of the main and sufficient reasons is that they love chess But also chess can help you in your life.

I work a lot with people as a chess coach, and also have a degree in psychology, so I see a connection between chess and real life and I want to share my thoughts with you about it.

Below you can read a list of how chess can help you in your life:

 Fight to the end

Chess, like other sports, can help you develop the habit of fighting to the end. Even in a hopeless situation, you can fight and get a draw or even win the game (you can find many examples even in the games of the best players). The main battlefield is not a chess board, this is your head. Many people lose the game much earlier than the official defeat, because inside themselves they have already lost the game. Many chess players can stop fighting after one blunder or a bad move. The same thing in real life - some people stop trying after one failure. In chess, you need to be a fighter and continue to fight in a bad or even lost position if you want to achieve big goals and succeed. Even if you lose at the end, you can complicate the life of the opponent. The same with a match or tournament - fantastic comebacks can be found not only in chess, but also in other sports. When I got the title of national master, I needed to win the last 3 games against strong players, and I did it! The same thing with real life - to be successful, you need to continue to move towards your goal even after failure and bad days.

 Work regularly and hard to achieve a big goal

Many people want to be rich and famous, but not many want to work hard for this. If you want to become a national master or win an international chess tournament, you need to do a lot of work before: practice puzzles, study and analyze openings, work a lot on middle game and strategy, play many games with other people, analyze your games. It takes hours of practice and attention. The same thing in real life - you cannot be a good doctor or build a beautiful body without hundreds of hours of practice, and this requires your attention and efforts. A big goal consists of many small goals and to achieve it - you need to regularly move step by step in the right direction

 Enjoy the game

The main reason why you play chess if you are not a chess professional (mostly they also play with pleasure) is to relax and have some fun during the game. For me, this means that you need to find what you love in chess and follow it - you like to think a lot - play with long-time control (for example, 30 minutes or even daily chess), you prefer to play speed chess or you don’t have a lot of time for the game - play blitz or even a bullet, you can also solve puzzles (puzzle rush on chess.com works well too). Do you prefer aggressive chess style - play gambits, prefer calm style - choose closed openings. The same thing with your life –enjoy it! Find what you like to do, what inspires you, and follow it. Often you need to spend time and learn it, also take courage to follow this. Only you know what can make you happy at this moment and what satisfies you. You like apples and reading - have a good evening with an apple pie and a good book. Explore it!

 Learn from mistakes

Even the world chess champion sometimes makes mistakes or plays poorly. Making mistakes is a normal part of our lives. The main thing is to analyze your mistakes and make conclusions from this. Each chess player has lost many games, and this is a normal part of development. Good players analyze their games, try to extract useful experience from them and will not repeat the same mistake in the future. You lost the game in the opening - after the game it would be nice to study this opening and analyze it with the computer. An endgame defeat is a good reason for you to study this type of endgame and be better at it. Play badly because it was 3 am — a good idea not to play when you're tired and want to sleep. The same thing with life - you can learn a lot from your mistakes and failures and not do it twice in the future. To do this, you can analyze your mistake and make a conclusion from it. For example, you planned to get up early and meditate or do some sports, but you overslept because you went to bed late. The next time it’s better not to watch movies or YouTube until late =) You asked your boss to increase your salary, and instead of increasing he shouted at you - the next time it’s better not to communicate with him when his favorite football team lost, and he’s angry.