Beginner Attitude for Growth

This is the advice that I have given myself and trying to follow. It isn't always easy but the best attitude, IMO, is "when you lose a game, review it then move on to the next one".

The reason why I have to repeatedly take my own advice is that I get so frustrated when I make blunders and lose a game that I thought I had a good shot at winning. I have been playing chess on and off for years but never took it seriously until two months ago. I have a chess journal that I write in every day to keep myself focused on this discipline. I have also read a lot of books and watched a lot of videos to improve my game. So it is especially frustrating when you spend so much time studying the game and then you make stupid blunders. You start beating yourself up mentally and that doesn't do you any good. You got to remind yourself that you are human and you are going to make errors. No good will come on dwelling over the games that you have lost. The best you can get from them is to learn from your mistakes.

Review the game. Figure out where you went wrong and how you can fix it in the future. If you blundered a hanging piece. Maybe you were too much in a rush. Maybe you didn't take the time to check if your threatened pieces are protected etc. At the end of the day; doing a review will extrapolate value out of your lost games. Beating yourself up and getting emotional is not going to help you.

Then finally move on to the next one. Don't dwell on the loss. After the review. Close the proverbial book on that game and don't think about it. Play the next one, telling yourself that this is a new opportunity to play the best that you can. If you lose again then repeat this process. Hope this helps some people. It has helped me. 

BONUS: Here is a quote that I was told by Morgan Wootten and it is probably the inspiration to the advice here. "You learn more from losing than winning. You learn how to keep going."