How do you actually improve apart from lots of playing?

I started playing chess 3 months ago. I can't say I'm a very talented player but I do alright. I really wanna be more than just an ordinary casual player and even though I'm willing to commit the time to study, I find it hard to find the proper material. I'm deeply disappointed by every single Youtube channel I've found so far. I'm not sure if others will share my opinion but most of the tutorials/lessons are super hard to comprehend for beginners/intermediates. You have to pause every 5 seconds because they simply don't realize we can't grasp information like a grandmaster who's been playing for 20 minutes. Theory, in my opinion, should be taught in comprehensible, slower language. Most of them, especially Hikaru, speedrun through the lesson and you end up watching 20 minutes of content and still not an ounce better. 

I was told to learn an opening, learn the middle game and then the end game. I took that advice and I tried to study and implement the London System as my opening but I don't think it was a great success. Even when my opponent let me build it all without hassle, I struggled to feel a better player compared to when I just randomly opened the game with whatever I felt right. 

I need some advice from more advanced players, what should I do? I really wanna study chess but I find all the material incomprehensible. Not to mention that most of the YT videos are pure clickbait. 

Thanks in advance

Well, you should learn the theory of openings and all of that

Having a good opening repertoire is key to improve

You can ask others to look at your games and comment on them. Always ask yourself "Why did my opponent do that? Was it to develop a piece, control the center, prepare to castle, they plan to do something like 1 Bxh7+ Kxh7 2 Rxd5 and you'll be down a piece. Before you move check your move out so you don't blunder a piece away, things like that as examples.

Don’t just play or perform—focus on specific weaknesses. Break down the skill and work on parts that challenge you. Quality > quantity. https://dooflixtv.net/

I started playing chess when i was 5 and now im 11 so a total 6 years

im great at playing chess

i joined many chess competition in my school and won them all

You might play against people who are better than you. This way, you will see how they think

I tell everybody starting out if you want to get good, join a club or get a coach. Learning the right way starting out is how you avoid a lifetime of bad habits.

Playing as a new to chess by playing bucket loads of just Blitz and Bullet chess will not allow for improving to a reasonably high standard, by best days of play are behind us it's part of getting older however my uncle was a strong county standard player reaching a Ecf rating of 200+ (2200 Elo) i spent thr first of my years inder his wing and never played anything other than classical controls for the first 2 years, grasping fully the fundamentals of the game, Endings and Middle Game studies after I never reached my uncles highs but did get to a Ecf Rating of 153 (Elo 1820) so my advice if you want to become good at chess is learn and study the important bit first Middle and Endgames before hiking up on Blitz and Bullet play

Thinking better instead of just "pushing wood".

Play a simple but effective opening like the Hippo and do lots of chess puzzles to help your middlegame tactics and endgame technique.

That's nice to hear especially from a female! But do understand that as you get better, you will be playing tougher competition and the wins will not be as easy to get.

Look for Remote Chess Academy or Chess Vibes videos.

Why not try the classic instruction books? Reinfeld’s Complete Chess Course and Chernev’s Logical Chess Move by Move have been around for 60 years and are still among the best teaching books in print.

Newcomers should NOT try to learn by playing countless blitz games against other beginners. Whatever you think you are learning from them is probably wrong. Such learning is slow and inefficient. In my opinion, spending a week with a good instruction book is much better than the same amount of time spent playing blitz.

stick to slow time controls. Give yourself time to think.

go over your games afterward. Try to understand, in general terms, what went wrong and what you could have done better.

Join an OTB club. Talk to stronger players about your games. Pay attention to how they think during a game.

Dont spend time trying to memorize opening sequences. All openings are based on general principles: Develop quickly, occupy/control the center, castle quickly.

if you do study an opening, pay attention to the middlegame plans that typically follow. It is easier to learn the general themes of an opening then it is to memorize sequences of moves. Knowing the themes/plans of an opening will then help you find specific moves.

I have been playing chess 20+ years and never did anything to improve

I was 400 elo in rapid and blitz but I am now 814 elo in rapid and in blitz 650 elo

I think you're disappointed with chess YouTube channels because you picked the wrong videos to watch. Most of those content creators already have a solid foundation, so when they teach, they tend to skip over what they consider the most basic concepts

That’s why you should work on strengthening your "basic knowledge" so you can understand the videos that once felt confusing. The simplest way is to go through the "lesson plans" on Chess.com at this link: https://www.chess.com/lessons/guide , and complete all the lessons under the "Beginner (Fundamentals)" section. You don’t even need to pay for Chess.com to learn—just use the "lesson titles" as "keywords", and you can find plenty of free resources that cover the same material

Oh, and one more thing: if you're new to chess, choose an "opening" that feels comfortable for you to play, but make sure it follows the three basic "principles" (as outlined in this lesson: https://www.chess.com/lessons/opening-principles):

1. "Development"
2. "Control the center"
3. "King safety"
If you find the "London System" uncomfortable to play, then try a different "opening" that you feel more at ease with. Just make sure each move you play sticks to those three "principles". Also, remember: there’s no “best” "opening"—only the one that suits your "playing style" the most

I'd say I'm 2400+ today because of three things: reading chess books, playing to practice what I've learned from those chess books, and analyzing my games afterward to see what I could've done better.

It's not an easy path, of course. Chess is a difficult game. Losing a lot is part of the process.

But quality chess books are so valuable when it comes to improvement. I don't think I've learned much of anything from YouTube. But if you take away all the things I learned from chess books, I'd probably still be around 1400 or so ...

Honestly it depends how you do the blitz games but it's a risky strategy to play a bunch of blitz it's honestly more effective then rapid when it works but usually it ends up getting into bad habits before then (after your 1300-1600 its typically fine to do blitz )