The Biggest Lie We Tell Ourselves
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[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to another episode of Next Level Chess podcast. I'm Grandmaster Noël Studer, and I'm here to help you get a more positive mindset and to simplify your chess training so you can enjoy your chess journey more and also get better results. Who wouldn't want that? And today I'm gonna talk more about the mindset part because as I've talked about it last week in the podcast episode called You are Not Your Rating.

I have struggled with mindset for a long time, and I've put a lot of pressure on myself, and I realized by all the feedback I got on my newsletter and the podcast episode on that topic that I'm definitely not alone. There are so many people that seem to struggle with this [00:01:00] concept of trying to improve.

But nevertheless, being happy in the moment because my own story to myself was, well, if I would be happy right now, why would I even put work in to get better? So what I thought I had to do is to be unhappy in the moment, to be stressed in the moment, so that I hate my situation right now so much that I get a lot of energy and a lot of drive to change that.

So, getting a lot of pain in the moment for a better future. The problem is that if this gets a pattern like it did for me, that is basically an endless, vicious cycle because there's always something more to achieve.

So I wanna share a quote I [00:02:00] read in a fantastic book that is called The Radical Acceptance by Tara Brock, highly recommended, and the quote goes as follows. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change, and this is from Carl Rogers and I found this so interesting because it goes completely against what I felt during my chess career that I need to hate my current moment, that I need to not accept my current rating, to feel like I'm super underrated so that I can improve.

And I've lived most of my chess career in this state of stress. A lot of time I was convinced that I was severely underrated and that my real breakthrough was just around the corner. I always waited for the moment to achieve the next big result, so then I could finally relax and be proud of myself. And this constant chasing and simultaneously trying to escape the current reality has [00:03:00] put a big toll on my mind and body.

I really felt this was necessary. As I mentioned already, to achieve peak performance. I had the strong belief that if I stopped pushing myself this way, I lose my drive and not improve anymore. Never do anything hard anymore and just lie on a beach and just be like it is. If I'm happy in the moment, why would I do something hard?

Now I realize that actually this faulty mindset was one of the core reason my body wasn't able to recover from a traumatic brain injury. I mentioned this in my last week podcast, and one of the core reasons I stopped playing chess because I simply didn't enjoy it anymore.

Imagine if every time you're telling yourself I'm not happy with myself right now, if this goes on for too long and it's always connected to chess and to improving more, I have to win. I have to do that." At some point, you just don't enjoy what you're doing. And yes, I had good results. I didn't stop because of the results, but it just wasn't fun anymore. So for a long time I really thought this [00:04:00] was only a me problem.

But as I mentioned, I got all of you guys' feedback and the more experience I get as a coach, blogger, author, podcaster, whatever, the more I realized this is really more of a global pandemic, so to speak. It seems like many, many people have the same problem, and it's not even just for people that do something professionally, but you see it in hobbies, like you guys at home listening to this podcast. Chess is probably your hobby.

You see it when I play with friends tennis or anything else that we can get really upset with our own current performance and kind of use this as a power or as an energy driver for improvement in the future. But it's really an unhealthy approach. And if you talk to a chess player, like you can be 99% sure that they will think they are underrated.

And many of us also have this belief that when we achieve... name, what you want to [00:05:00] achieve... then we can be happy, we can be proud and finally, enjoy chess. If you relate to all of this, then definitely continue listening because this episode is for you.

Let's talk a little bit about why it does not work, or at least why it didn't work for me. I think just saying that this mindset is not good for us is really a severe understatement. I'd argue this way of thinking made me miserable, unhappy, and ungrateful. Because if you are only seeing what's not going well, if you're only seeing what you're not having right now, why you're not happy right now, you can miss all of the things that actually you did well.

The main reason that it doesn't work is a big giant lie because it's based on a fundamental belief that is simply not true. So I'll name a few milestones I hit with that thought process that if I achieve X, Y, Z or any of these milestones that are coming up and I thought, then I will be happy.

[00:06:00] But it didn't work. So I became the youth Champion of Switzerland. I made medals in international youth tournaments. I made the IM title, became Swiss Champion, became a pro, had my first sponsor. There's so many things until becoming the youngest Swiss grandmaster ever, making money as a chess coach, launching course number one, launching course number two, building the business out to a six figure business.

There's so many steps along the way. And whenever I was close to reaching a milestone, what happened is I would just set another one. It's the process is the problem. If you're always searching for relaxing and being happy in the future, you will continue pushing that to the future.

So I was constantly projecting my happiness and relaxation into the future, and whatever I set as a milestone came up, I would just continue the same habit of putting that into the future [00:07:00] again. Now, from mindfulness and stoics, I've learned that happiness can only exist in the present. I found nobody exactly that had this quote, but there's probably a thousand smart people that said that at some point.

So, yeah, is a lot of smart people have said that, and I believe it to be true right now. So if you always think you can be happy five minutes from now when you do something every single moment of now that you experience will not be a happy moment. Let that sink in. You're very close, but you're never getting there.

And the problem is that there is literally no end to this. Like chances are you can always play better chess, earn more, be smarter. That's how we get greedy billionaires that's still worry about making more instead of enjoying what they have. It looks so ridiculous from the outside.

You're thinking, oh, you have billions. What do you worry about? But there are simply on their thousandth or 1000000th repetition of, if [00:08:00] I can just do that, achieve that, get this, then I can relax, be happy, and have enough.

Okay, as a little side note, before you get angry at me for just excusing billionaires of their behavior, some billionaires are also just egomaniac assholes. I would sign that, definitely. But I believe that for some of them, it's just a version of this trap that they just go over and over and over. By the way, it's also not an excuse. It's also not an excuse for myself for being ungrateful or unhappy. It's just an explanation and I have to do better and I have to improve myself, or I have to learn how to be happy in the moment.

So when I thought I was underrated as a 2,400 player, by the time I hit my goal of 2,500 rating, I thought I was underrated as a 2,500 player. And in this state, I always just saw why I was being unlucky and should have had better results.

I didn't see all the things that went well or took a moment to be proud of my achievements, and that's a habit that [00:09:00] still keeps going on today. I have some of that, even when I play a simple card game with my wife, Alessia. By the way, Alessia really is good at this game. So I lose quite often. Well actually, already, again, I'm just seeing the negative.

Sometimes she tells me, you never are happy with the outcome, even when you get lucky. And actually at some point when she said that, I was like, oh yeah, that's really a pattern. That's something I took from my chess. Or just that is a general pattern that if I play a game, I see all the things that could have been better, and I don't see the things that I maybe got lucky, and so I am not grateful for what happened, but just like, oh yeah, we need to change this. And then it could have been even better.

When you always focus on the things that could still be better, obviously you still see the difference of what is right now and what could be better, and you feel unhappy and you feel disappointed. You feel like you have to do more. You feel like if you are [00:10:00] getting there, you could then be happy.

And this is in an extreme version like winning the lottery and getting mad that you are unlucky, that there were only 20 million in the prize fund and last week there were a hundred million. You're only seeing what could have been even better. You could have had a hundred million instead of 20 million, and you're not seeing at all of like, Hey, I just won the lottery. Like that, that's super lucky.

And when you have that habit, and I really have that ingrained pretty hard and I try to work on it or get to the things that I do against it, but when you have that ingrained and if you realize listening this, oh yeah, this is me. It's really difficult because whatever you do, basically your brain uses this as basic mechanism.

So you need to get aware of it and then try to change it slowly. Otherwise, this is your autopilot and you will just see negative stuff. You will just see what could be better. So what I effectively do at most time is compare the present to an [00:11:00] ideal version of the present or an even better version of the future.

And then obviously my situation is nearly always worse than it could be. If I am looking at all my chess games, let's say 20 chess games I played, if I just look at all the chess games where I could have drawn but lost or I could have won, but drew, then I think, well, I should have made so much more points, but if I would be more objective, I could also look at all the games where I was losing and I still held, or I was losing and I actually still won.

And I could tell, well, that's actually a positive result. That's not something that is commonly happening, so I should compensate. But usually I'm just looking at what didn't go well and not at what did go well. So what is this solution? And for me, it's a pretty simple solution. Again, I love simple solutions but it's very hard to apply.

So I'm not going to tell you that. Now you, you hear this and you're saying, oh yeah, obviously. And now from now on, you never have [00:12:00] the problem again. So it's really simple solution, but hard to apply it on a daily basis. So even though I understood it for years already, the struggle is really the daily application.

And the quote that I said early on when talking in this podcast, I'm repeating it. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change, is really the solution. It's stopping to want more out of the current moment. It's accepting where we are right now. So not if I achieve this, then I can relax, but I can relax right now.

And what happens is, when I stop feeling so bad about my current moment, when I stop putting so much energy in why I should be stronger, why I am underrated, why am unlucky, why, why, why? I stress less about the [00:13:00] future. And then I can actually put in the work to make my chess even better or create meaningful content now, or improve my business or enjoy the present moment.

The thing is, if you are spending too much energy and being disappointed, you're actually also wasting some energy. You can say, Hey, I'm happy where I am right now, but I would still love to record that video, or I would still love to play a game with good focus. And then you can actually do it without tilt, without feeling overwhelmed, without all of the problems that come with kind of this chasing feeling.

And generally your experience will be better, and that's so funny and so counterintuitive, but your results will also probably be better. And this whole acceptance is what Tara Brock, I already brought her up. A great author, definitely check her out, calls radical acceptance. I really can't recommend her book with this title highly enough.

It's a [00:14:00] super deep dive and you should be ready for some challenging moments. But yeah, for me it was a real eye-opener. And still, again, it's like I've read it, but I need to go through it again and to try to apply the things even more often. I realized that during my professional chess days, I had glimpses of this radical acceptance of this.

Like, okay, I'm fine with where I am, whatever, let's try to work towards getting better, but be okay with where I am right now. But it was for all the wrong reasons. It only happened when I was so exhausted, so upset, so defeated that I accepted that I'll never achieve my high expectations.

So there was a vicious cycle where at the end, basically I was so depleted. I would say, okay, whatever. It's okay. So step number one was trying really hard. Step number two was not being happy with my results. Step number three, feeling underrated, left behind. That's [00:15:00] where many of us are. Step number four, try even harder.

Well, we need to get somewhere to this result so we can finally relax. Step number five, actually making the progress, but already in the meantime, having set the bar higher, then we try even harder, and at some point I would give up and say, okay, I played three bad tournaments in a row. I really don't like it.

Losing even more doesn't pay me that much more. So I accept I won't live up to these huge standards that I have or these huge expectations I have. And then sometimes I even said, yeah, I would probably never achieve this, or I will never win that tournament. And I finally relaxed. And then finally, and magically the improvement comes when I relaxed.

I have a few friends that tried being a professional chess player for a year or two, and many of these players got their biggest improvement when they went back to studying or when they took a corporate [00:16:00] job. So they would work for one or two years, extremely intensively on chess and obviously the expectation were rising and they were thinking, oh, I put in so much now I need to reap the benefits and I need to win these rating points. And they were stressed. And then at some point they were like, okay, professional chess not working. Let me go to study something or let me go get a job.

And they still played a little bit of chess, but without expectations. They felt like, okay, now I'm working and I'm not going to improve. I accept my rating. And usually they would win 50, a hundred points very quickly because finally they were easing into the moment and accepting where they were.

And I remember seeing Alessia go through the same cycle when we first met, and this is just a funny story, but also showing that it's always so much easier to see it in someone else than to see it in yourself. So back then I was like, Hey, Alessia, you just need to [00:17:00] accept. Don't worry. Don't think like you're that strong.

All of these things. And I was suffering from the same thing, but I didn't see it in myself. So if you're listening to this podcast or you were listening to this podcast and you think of five friends that have this problem, then maybe shortly stop and think well, if I can see it in all of my friends, might it be that I don't see it in myself yet and I need to look inwards.

So that could be a good reminder. So back to Alessia. She was playing a horrible world championship under 20 in 2016. She lost over a hundred rating points in over the board chess. That's a lot. That's crazy. And actually, as a side note, I also lost over 30 points with my k 10. That's also incredible.

Usually losing 10 points for me was a bad tournament. I lost 35. So we really bonded over having a horrible tournament back there in India. [00:18:00] And so at some point ,we were dating and she was more than 200 points below her all time high. And for quite some time she was fixated or she just had this thought in her mind.

I'm so underrated. I need to get back to this rating. If I get back to this rating, then I can relax, then I'm not stressed anymore. And it led to more emotional decisions, less joy during games, less relaxed states during games, and worse results. So she entered that vicious cycle, and so similarly to how it happened with me, at some point she was like, okay, screw this.

I am a 2000 rated player, it's okay. I just try to enjoy my games. And with that acceptance, immediately better results came. And obviously she enjoyed her games so much more. So it's really sometimes this click of saying, okay, I accept myself how I am as we heard from this quote. And then you can actually change, then your chess can get better.

Which is very interesting and [00:19:00] counterintuitive for me. And so in hindsight, it always looks so easy, but from my very own experience, I know how hard it is to get to this point. I really often have to wait for that pain to build up to so strong that I kind of crash. The whole system doesn't work anymore.

And then I'm like, okay, I accept this. This is just a reminder that if you are feeling, oh yeah, I'm on my fifth vicious cycle in this, it's not like once you know it, it will be resolved. So be kind with yourself and try to get better at it, but it's not something that changes immediately.

That was a lot of mumbling for 20 minutes. Now let's get to the actionable steps. What am I actually doing? What helps me with acceptance? And these are three steps, and these are actionable. You can do this every day, and they help me. [00:20:00] Again, they don't solve everything, but they help. So the first step is asking the question, what would I do and feel if I achieved the thing that I feel like I have to achieve?

This question really helps me understand what feeling I am chasing, because at the end of the day, we're not chasing the rating points. We're not chasing the money. We're not chasing like we are chasing the emotions behind that. Rating points make us feel smart, make us feel like we achieved something.

Maybe people are proud of us. Maybe people see us as smart, so we care how we are looking in other people's eyes. We are chasing these emotions, so I need to understand what emotion am I chasing and for my chess, for example, the feeling I wanted is to enjoy every game, feel good with myself, put less pressure on myself, and enjoy the journey and play tournaments.

I really look forward to playing that. That was it. This is [00:21:00] super important because that leads us to question number two. What is the objective reason that I can't do this right now?

For nearly everybody, the solution won't be to have more money, to not be afraid of the future, or the solution won't be to buy a Ferrari.

So others think we are cool so we can be more self-confident. The solution will be from inward out to be more self-confident. Oh, we realize we don't need the Ferrari. Which is the same. You can feel smart, you can accept yourself how you are without having to have a certain rating.

And so with my chess example, no matter what rating I have, I can definitely enjoy every game. Put less pressure on myself. Try my best, enjoy the journey, play tournaments. I look forward to all of these things I can do right now. I can choose to do that. It's not that somebody has ever written a [00:22:00] rule that if you are not 2,600 rated, you can not enjoy your game.

Or if you are x, y, exaggerated, you should be ashamed of yourself. There is no rules. Such as that. It's all just our interpretation. You will have a kind of your thinking of like, oh yeah, if I'm 1500, then I'm finally a decent player. I hear this a lot. It's like, who said that? Who? By the time you are 1480, you will feel that 1650 is the decent player, so you will always just move your goalpost.

So try to look at it objectively and understand that there is no rule written. And for you at home as a amateur chess player, as a hobby, you can definitely play chess without pressure. You can enjoy every game. You can feel okay with your current rating. You can enjoy a game even if you end up losing it.

You can play a bad move of chess without feeling stupid or thinking that you're an idiot. You can do all of these things. It's just your choice and [00:23:00] nobody else has power over that. And if you think now, oh yeah, it's easy to say for a grandmaster, but I am whatever rated, then that's, again, that's your brain telling you, well, I can only be smart or I can only be happy when IX, Y, Z.

But at the end of the day, like at some point, we will both lie in a coffin probably and be forgotten. So who the heck cares at this point? How much rating points I had? How much rating point you had? No, nobody cares. Nobody freaking cares. So if you stop caring too much, then you be fine. You'll be less stressed.

Talking about dying and getting forgotten. That's actually one of the ways that helps me also and has helped people for centuries to feel a little bit more relaxed. And actually the stoics called this Memento Mori, which is just Latin for Remember, you must die. So if we are not taking ourselves so seriously and remember that at some [00:24:00] point we will all die and be forgotten, then it's like, why do I stress so much about these results?

Let's just enjoy this journey a little bit more. So usually I freak out when I think about my own demise, but then at some point I'm like, oh yeah, it's actually relaxing to think that. No matter what rating I will have, who cares? Like in 150 years, my name will be forgotten, and that doesn't matter what I'm doing.

Let's get back to real life and not how thinking about our demise will help us to be more relaxed.

So, step number one, what would I do and feel if I achieved my goal that I'm thinking I need to achieve? Second step is asking what is the objective reason that I can't do this right now? And step number three is asking myself, how can I implement the ways of thinking, doing, and feeling already right here?

So if I'm asking myself, what would I want to feel? What is [00:25:00] the objective reason that I can't feel it, but there's none. So how do I fake it until I really feel it?

This is just trying to put action to the things that I want to feel. So for me, I actually wrote myself a list back when I was a chess professional. They might sound a little bit silly, but that's what I wrote down. Point number one, smile at least once during a game. Point number two, play as if there would be no rating.

Point number three, trust my gut instead of triple checking everything and being scared to make a mistake all the freaking time. Point number four, be proud of myself for good results and celebrate them. My autopilot was, oh, I just had a good tournament. Okay, let's get back to training for the next one.

No, celebrate a little bit. Enjoy it. You did something well. That's great. Be happy with it. Point number five, be okay with bad results. Point number six, train hard, but with a smile on my face. I don't need to be desperate and hating my life to get better [00:26:00] at what I'm doing and when I have the same worries about my finances.

Actually, I've made some examples also tied to finances. That's something that I, for myself, also have stress with. Sometimes maybe some people listening to this as well. And when I ask myself, why do I want to have X amount of money? Or why do I think that if I have X amount of money, I can finally relax?

I realized that the main point of me having this amount of money would be to stop thinking about money so much. So actually it might just be time to stop thinking about money so much right now and be okay with my current situation. Obviously that goes for everyone that you know, can afford the things that you absolutely need to live.

But I believe if you can listen to a 30 minute long chess podcast, probably you are not doing that badly. So, it's just putting what I hope [00:27:00] to feel in the future and actually doing it in the moment. So what matters most is that we all realize that, when I achieve, I can be happy, relaxed, proud, worthy, whatever is a very dysfunctional way of living, makes our lives miserable and absurdly enough.

It also makes us less successful. And even if not, what does it help us if we are successful, but feeling miserable? So the main thing I wanna get across with this podcast episode. Stress a little bit less about your rating. Be okay with where you are right now. Don't feel like if you're reaching the same amount like this other person on this podcast or this grandmaster, or this or that, you will feel happier needs to come from inside out.

It's not going to be a result that is making you feel good about yourself. You need to feel good about yourself right now. And I wanna leave you with one of my favorite [00:28:00] quotes from Stoic thinker, Seneca. And then actually in the description of this podcast episode, I will give some books and some things that have helped me trying to put this more in practice.

So if you feel like this is something you struggle with a lot, then check out the podcast description for sure, 'cause there will be a few resources linked that have helped me. Okay, so let's finish off with the quote from the Stoic, Seneca. "True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse yourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient for he that is.

So, once nothing, the greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it might be, without wishing for what he has not." That was a [00:29:00] quote from the Stoic Seneca. I hope my pronunciation didn't mess this up. Okay, that was long enough. I was mumbling too much today.

I hope this helped. See ya next week.

Hey guys, just two quick things before you take off. If you enjoyed this episode and want more structured chess improvement tips from myself, check out my newsletter at nextlevelchess.com/newsletter. It's totally free. It'll always remain free, and it goes out every single Friday with the best latest chess improvement tips that I have.

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