Hard to tell if I'm improving

Lately my rating has come at a standstill. It's starting to become very annoying as I don't seem to get anything out of chess training. I feel like sometimes I am improving in small amounts but games such as this make me wonder

Games like this confuse me a little bit. On one hand I played decent and so did my opponent. On the other hand my opponent was much lower rated than me and I missed my chances to win. I feel as if I have hit some sort of chess plateau. I have not boosted my classical rating since last July of 2023. Well this is not true since I went up 5 USCF points in February 2024. Then within two months I lose another 20 points. I find this frustrating seeing how my efforts appear wasted. I have more games where I screwed myself over but this one made me sadder than the rest because I played so good to the point where stockfish isn't trashing me over every move I make like usual. Only for my one mistake to cost me my win and ruin the effort I put in to this game. Which has been happening more and more since Washington International of 2023. People who know will know

I will be playing in nationals if my statistics midterm exam does well. If I do, I hope I can solve whatever is wrong with me and my play.

Thats just a small rant 

Cya guys lol

I hope I put this in the right topic this time

dw im also not improving maybe ask @sixpackofabs for help

Its ok lol, stop killing yourself on one game. You are playing for a chance in chess, not everyone wins everygame.

Nah I haven’t had a significant rating increase since the world open of 2023. The most I’ve increased since then in a tournament was around 5 points lol

I'm stuck at 400 dont feel too bad

You just drew Will Moorhouse. That in itself is a sign that you are improving big time, as scoring a results like that is an extremely rare occurrence. You should be very proud of yourself for accomplishing such a feat. Heartiest Congratulations! Know that if you ever face Will Moorhouse again, you’ll get to know exactly how it feels to be Brejesh Chakrabarti

LMFAO

This is a position from your analysis. When you need no more than 3 minutes to judge that the ending is won for Black after 39...f3+ 40.Kf2 Kd3 (or 40.Kd2 a5) you will be able to claim real and significant improvement.

Maybe its because you're not trying lol. Or not focusing life on chess.

That puts waaaaay too much into a single game.

Most importantly, people can be underrated. Then they will play much better than their rating, until their official rating matches their actual rating.

Also, people can have a good game and play 500 points above their rating, and people can have a bad game and play 500 points below their rating.

Have you tried practicing shoulder stand?