Maintaining Consistency as a Chess Player

Over the past few months, I've noticed a rather disturbing trend in my play.  My performance changes drastically from day to day and week to week!  Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem so I felt it would be interesting to start a thread and see what people do to maintain consistency.

Lately I've been really bad... yesterday my tactics trainer rating was 2606.  Today I've barely been able to keep it over 2400.  Same with blitz... 2100+ a couple days ago... I dropped just below 2000 today.  OTB it's been very similar, not long ago I achieved a winning endgame vs an IM in round one.  I managed to miscalculate a fairly simple variation and went on to lose... this managed to ruin my tournament... in fact, the next round I lost to someone with a rating just UNDER 2000.  

Anyways, my point is that my play (and the play of many of my friends) is noticeably streaky.  Has anyone found any tips/tricks/advice to improve one's consistency and/or help them get over a tough loss?  

Looking forward to everyone's replys!!! :)

It is interesting though, not just chess but other skills will seem to strangly fluctuate day to day sometimes.

For me a big part of it is having rest, food, and nothing overly emotionally distracting (my dog dies ).  Sometimes though it does seem like a mental fog rolls in for no real reason.  In tournaments I try to combat that by going over some games and simple-ish tactic problems before the first round.

Other than that it's just will-power / motivation at the board.  I know some days at a tourney I've felt like "why am I even playing"  and have no drive or imagination at the board... or after a frustrating loss it's even worse.

My last tourney was a funny mix of this.  I lost to a weaker player (after one of my worst tournament blunders) to kick it off and the subsequent rounds saw me playing upset and poorly but winning (vs weaker players) followed by playing well but eventually losing to equal or stronger players... end result were my wins were poorly played games and my losses were my better played games heh.

@wafflemaster... Story of my LIFE :P.  Okay... That's two.  I'm starting to suspect it's a sleep deprivation thing :P.  Especially since in North American the tournament schedule is pretty grueling... and I'm usually out fairly late with chess buddies each night.  Maybe sleep is the issue :P.  Very curious to see more ideas.

Matt, make sure you sleep lots and eat healthy. Make sure you dream about Magnus Carlsen and not Jessica Alba. And really, really, really keep your bishops in your pants.


good luck,

Julian

This happens to me almost everytime. I don't know why I should play if I don't have the motivation to win...???