Where do we Draw Motivation From?
Hey there chessers!
I've recently been, to say the least, not playing much chess. I've just had no motivation. It felt like 1600 was the only thing pulling me to play more, and now that that's gone, I didn't have any reason to play. Sure, I set my next goal at 1650 at the end of the month, but it just didn't really mean anything to me.
In other sports, when a team or player is down and doesn’t feel like playing, there’s always someone there to pick them up and make them feel special and needed. Perhaps it’s a fellow teammate, a coach, a caddie, but it’s always somebody who’s been there with you and understands.
As chess players, it can get quite lonely. Besides our 2nd-grade chess club (a complete joke; we didn’t even learn how the pieces move correctly), I’ve never had a coach or been part of a club. So when I get down and don’t feel like playing, nobody’s around but me.
This begs the question: where can we, as chess players, draw our inspiration from? How do we stay motivated? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Personal Experience in Other Sports
Most of this blog will be talking about myself and my personal opinions, but of course, I want to explore what others think.
I'm not around a large community of chess players, but a lot of them have tried it out (and sadly resorted to cheating). But I think this says something important: chess is not an easy game to stick with. We've all experienced this- the times we feel like giving up and never starting again. Many of us have given up before, myself included.
Many people that I've known, either in person or online, have mentioned goals and coaches as their main form of improvement, and likewise, motivation. This makes sense: goals are there for you to achieve, so you play more and work harder to get there. And coaches are always there, nudging you, teaching you, helping you to progress.
In sports other than chess, things like pep-talk, inspirational quotes/songs, and "high-five banners" are very popular, especially among team activities. Yet I don't see any chess player out there pepping themselves up, making themself a high-five banner they slap as they walk into their room. Why haven't popular motivational activities diffused over into chess?
I can't complain, though- not sure whose making a high-five banner just to play the big game in a tournament hall, and seriously, I've never seen somebody give themself a full-on pep talk. I've seen people (including me) mutter to themself, "I got this. I can do this. Let's go," etc, but not the stuff you see in high school football locker rooms before the game starts or at halftime.
But what about inspirational quotes- I don't think chess players do enough to try to stay inspired in their play nearly as much as we should. Chess is, of course, a more casual game than, say, football or basketball, but why should that make it less important? Chess is a mental sport, yet people aren't prioritizing the motivational aspect of chess enough, the same things that are known as the "mental part" in other sports.
And before we dive deeper, I'd like to explain why motivation matters. You're reading this as a casual chess player, maybe a club player, but most everybody reading isn't a titled player. Take, for example, a GM. Do you know how hard it is to go from a low GM to the very top, the best players in the world? How do these people even survive? Look at Magnus Carlsen- he's so good he doesn't even have a reason to play. No motivation. He's not getting any better.
That's why motivation is important. Not only does it make you play, it makes you play with purpose- and in turn, you play better, more inspired chess.
Personal Experience in Other Sports
Before we delve into my relations with our lovely game and why I've been playing for so long and still continue to play, I'd like to talk about how I stayed motivated and inspired in other sports.
Over my life, I've played a few different sports competitively, namely soccer, golf, both of which I've stopped playing, cross-country, and track. Each one is very different, and they all held me in for so long for different reasons, but I do feel like aspects of each one do melt a little into my chess life.
Starting with soccer, the (probably) first sport I was introduced to, and had a very big impact on me for quite some time. To my knowledge, I was in Kindergarten the first year I played, but to be honest, I only have 1 memory from back then. So let's fast forward to the next year, when I had moved and was playing for a YMCA team in my new city. I was decent compared to everybody else, and there was one main reason pulling me to the game so much during the next 3ish years of my life: I loved the game.
Sadly, COVID-19 messed up my next 2 seasons, and I wasn't able to play at all for a very long time. So when I went to play for my school team in middle school, I had lost a lot of skill and had fallen behind everybody else, who, as this was in a different state, played plenty during those years and had improved accordingly. I made the team, but didn't get to start, which is acceptable for a 6th grader anyway. Honestly, I kept playing my best because I loved my teammates and my coach- we were not a very good team, but we were a closely-bonded one. Sadly, that's not a gift I have in chess- there's no team around me to keep me drawn to the game.
That all changed when I went to a new school, and my gosh, we were one of the best in the state. Because of this, I wasn't able to make the team either time (long story short, I should have, but Coach picked badly after tryouts, and the kid that replaced me didn't play a single minute that whole season). This was my least-motivated season, and I didn't really like a good majority of my teammates either time.
Soccer, mind you, is the most fun sport, and even though I no longer play, it's still the one I enjoy the most. I probably could still play as a goalie, but I'm not quite tall enough; I just have the perfect skill set. But I've learned that to stay connected to a sport or game, you either have to love it or the people that come with it. There's no other way.
Next on the list, golf. I hadn't played this for nearly as long, and really only played 2 competitive seasons, although I started playing when I was a bit younger. Just like in soccer, I wasn't able to play during COVID times, but this time it wouldn't have mattered much, as I was never very good at the game. Golf is one of my favorites, and although it's more solo, I did enjoy grinding it out, highs and lows. I think there are 2 main reasons I stuck with golf: first of all, the game was tough, and it was also not a team sport- I've had issues with those. Secondly, my brother also played, and it was nice to spend time with them out on the course.
Cross-Country has been a complete roller coaster, and one I'll stay on for the rest of high school, possibly even college. It started in 6th grade- I'd always been fast, so why not give it a try? Two miles doesn't sound like that much. Spoiler: I was dead wrong. I was pretty slow, and even as I adjusted to the distance, I was still below the average runner. If you remember, I then switched schools, and like our soccer, our middle school cross-country team was absolutely bonkers. I improved quite a lot in the next 2 years, but I was still about average and not putting up the times I needed for a breakout.
That is, until I took it into high school. The majority of the fast boys on our team were soccer players, and as they transitioned into high school, they dropped XC to focus on soccer more. I was the only boy in my grade that ran XC, as my best friend also still ran but left to go to a different school (
they're still one of my best friends though). My freshman year, I put in very hard work, and due to the longer distance (turns out stamina was actually my strength, not speed), I was able to gain a lot of ground on people who used to be much faster than me. I cut 5 minutes off my 5k time that year, and although I'm still not that fast, I put up a pretty decent time at regionals, which is my current PR (the state course is extremely hard). I have my first race of the new season tomorrow, so wish me luck in the comments 
.
The reasons I love cross-country, my goodness. I started there because I loved running, stayed there because of my friends, and continue to do it because of the goals I want to achieve, which I've found is a similar process that my chess addiction followed, but more on that later.
Lastly, track. I've only done 1 year of track, and it got cut short as I got sick the week of regionals. It's a very, very complicated thing. Since I run XC, I also run the long distance events for track, mainly the 1 mile, and I've also run the 2 mile (not a big fan) and 800 meter run. I joined mainly because it made perfect sense for me- I ran XC and had dropped out of soccer, my normal spring sport.
With track, however, all of the long-distance runners, and I mean every single person except me, dropped out. They just flat-out quit. I was the only one left. It took some motivation to stay in there, trust me- most of this came from Coach (also coached XC by the way). I liked him, and although I sometimes didn't agree with him or felt like he made unreasonable decisions, he did keep me on my toes and motivated to get out and work each day. Also, the clock was a huge factor. I PR'ed every meet except the last one I ran, and I just constantly wanted to get better, and with short distances to run, this was even more of a thirst than in XC.
To sum it all up, 3 main reasons showed up. First off, loving the sport/activity. This is a must for anybody wanting to get better at something. Chess and I have a love/hate relationship, with love being the input, and hate being the output. If I could learn to love chess, maybe I could improve a bit faster.
Secondly, loving the people that come with it. This makes perfect sense: you want to be around those people more, so you want to do that activity more. If you're part of a chess club, I hope this is the case for you, and I'd love to be in a chess club again (possibly create one at my school) and have a community that gets me, and I enjoy hanging out with.
Lastly, striving for the goals that you set. Goals are an amazing asset you have in any sport you do, whether it be the number of goals you score, the mph on your backhand, or your time in the 100-meter dash. For chess, elo goals are the easiest to set and the most effective as well. I'll get to this later, but goals made my chess skyrocket on multiple occasions.
Now that we've seen all of what it's like in different sports, let's take it and compare it with the game we all came here to play- chess.
Chess is the most emotionally-bound activity I've ever done in my life- I've never been so depressed after a single loss, so relieved after a single comeback, so ecstatic after the best game of my life.
So, in the 3 years I've been playing, what has kept me motivated?
We'll start with the early times, back when I first created my account. It would be an understatement to say that I was devastated when I dropped all the way down to 200. Yet this sparked what would be a defining journey for me- my journey through the realm of chess.
It all started with the "Great Climb", as I call it. This was the journey from 200-400 elo, and it's where I finally cemented my foundation- how the pieces move and all special moves (I'm sure en passant was new), basic mates, the simplest tactics. By the end of this, I was about the same rating as all of my friends and classmates- we all regularly hung pieces, we all regularly lost. But the motivation for this, something truly astounding- I wanted to get better. Not for some goal. Not to be like "Hey, I'm not that bad at this game" to my friends. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be better.
And I did. This presented the first anomaly of chess improvement- we reach our peak, our goal, what we believe is "good enough"-- and we just stop. I'd love to take, for example, fellow blogger and friend @RookMindset's blog: Pawn to b9 and My Chess Comeback, a perfect example of how reaching the pinnacle makes you take a different stance, and quitting is a completely logical response. Please read their blog; it's truly one of my favorites and inspired me to keep pushing forward.
Other than a week back and getting to 500, nothing happened until a year later- 2024 was here, and so was the time for picking up old hobbies. In a matter of days- something truly like a miracle that changed my whole life- I raced up to 600, and 700 came just 2 weeks after that. This alone was my motivation for playing- it made me feel amazing; I loved the game. What was supposed to be 1 blitz game turned into 1 addiction in a matter of weeks.
This put me into my "Golden Age"- and something I can't describe, no matter how much I tried. My motivation here was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I want to say I loved the game, but that isn't right. I loved winning. And winning I did. I quickly soared up to 800, then 900, and 1000 followed soon after.
Sadly, this is where the fear set in. I lost my triple digits, and I lost my motivation with it. If you've read my last blog, you'll know what I'm talking about. And with no motivation, no wins came either.
After crashing over 100 elo, I didn't come back until 6 months later. But what motivated me to come back in the first place? Honestly, I think I was just bored. XC season was over, and I needed something to take up more of my time. So I went back to my old friend chess, as the time had worn away my grudge slowly but surely.
And boy, oh boy, did I catch on quick. In 1 month, I caught hold of chess and started playing it regularly, working my way up over 300 elo points. And by the end of the year, I was over 1100. This started the era where I am today- pushing, working hard, and taking breaks: a key aspect in my new way of living (not just playing) chess. It was here at the new year that I set a goal for myself: by 2026, let's reach 1400. And for good measure, just in case I'm underestimating myself, my "upper bound" will be 1600.
That didn't last long. I got 1400 the day before April, completing that goal in a quarter of the time I had planned. However, now I needed to study up and get used to some positional concepts, and the running became much harder. My new goal was obvious- I wanted 1500 now.
It came a month and a half later, in May. My confidence was faltering a little bit because of the slow pace, but I wasn't too worried. I was so close to 1600, completing my goal well before the deadline.
That... didn't happen, though. Every time I would climb a little, I would fall twice the distance, multiple times, and I would lose my 1500 number. All motivation was gone. Thrown out the window. By the time June rolled around, I was severely depressed. It was summer! This should be the time I should be growing the fastest!
Lack of motivation kept me from going full speed. I still played, but lifelessly. I only had temporary motivation- hope in a goal, joy from playing well recently, faith that I could do better today. I had no lasting motivation, nothing to keep me afloat on a day-to-day basis. With rocky performances and a constantly fluctuating rating, I even tried out Xiangqi, Chinese Chess, only to discover the same thing I did when I first played international chess- I suck at it.
Eventually, I did get 1600- and man, was I elated. But this is when the consequences set in. Now that I had reached my goal, I had no other motivation. Even setting my new monthly goal didn't help. I was done. I had zero reason to play chess. This is what happens when you play on short-term motivation- when it goes away, you have no reason to play.
This puts me where I am today. I've started playing again- motivated by my love of the game once again. I had been missing something, something that matters to me, something I can't leave behind, just like my love of the game will never leave me behind.
Thanks so much for reading! You have no idea how much this matters to me- I put in hours of work to make blogs like these and- oh gosh, this sounds like a YouTube video asking for a subscription 😅. Just thank you sincerely, it means a lot to know that you care.
My journey has been, to say the least, very chaotic compared to many others. I hope that all of you can use this guide to help understand how to stay motivated and keep improving!
Also, shout-out to my friend @ChanMan4! They used to ask me for tips, but over the summer quickly surpassed me, and now I'm the one asking for tips from them. Congrats on everything!
