You are not your rating
===

[00:00:00] Hey, my dear Chess Improvers. This is Grandmaster Noël Studer for Next Level Chess podcast. Welcome back to another episode. Today I wanna talk about expectations and how they can ruin our life. I think this is not saying it excessively because I felt it myself, and I see it with many chess improvers as well. 

If we have too high expectations, everything can be suffering. It can really be tough. So today I want to talk about it and just say it loud and clear that you are not your rating. This is so important. We have to stop identifying our person with the results that we achieve. We are so much more [00:01:00] than what we do and the results we have.

That's definitely also just partly a reminder for myself. So if you struggle with too high expectations, if you get frustrated quickly when results are not there, if you identify yourself with your rating, if you feel stupid when you're not playing well, if you feel smart when you win a game, then this podcast episode is definitely for you.

I used to think that the solution to stress and overworking is very simple. I always thought that just doing less work, fewer hours, be very disciplined with taking time off. Not working on the weekend would be enough at making stress go away. Now for those not knowing, I have a history with a dramatic brain injury that allows me to work less.

For the past eight years I've suffered from that, but recently I realized that it's much more stress connected, [00:02:00] much more nervous system connected than actually physically from the brain injury itself. That's a very, very long story. But long story short, my problems come mostly from stress in my body and not from having hit my head anymore.

So for such a long time, I always got very disciplined about, as I said, already taking time off, not working too much. I mean, I built my chess coaching business basically on two to three hours a day. But somehow for a long time, I still felt the same stress. I still had the same kinda physical tension in my body and I really got confused because, well, I'm working so little, how can I be stressed?

And then recently I realized that the big problem I have is the relentless pressure I put on myself. So even if I work less, if my expectations are [00:03:00] extremely high, I will feel even stressed during periods where I'm not working because I always feel like I'm not achieving my expectations or I might fail to achieve my expectations.

And I often said that my main life motto was making the most out of every single moment I get and making the most out of my potential. And I realized that this is a very dangerous motto to have because making the most is a very, very high bar to set. So already 95% of my potential would be a disappointment because I wanna make the most.

So I recently realized that it's really all about expectation setting, even more than I realized when working with a sports psychologist. It's really about allowing myself to not be the ideal version of myself every single day. And I realized that I think for many chess [00:04:00] improvers, that's a linking piece as well to their frustration.

Because usually what happens is you have a lot of expectations as to how much you should train. But that usually comes from having a lot of expectations at your results. So you want to improve quickly. That's why you feel like you have to. Train a lot, and then you get stressed. You're not doing the training well, and you get frustrated.

Now, what I often do with students coming to me is I say, well, we now work much less, sometimes one third of the time that these chess improvers spend on chess. And what happens is that it helps with the quality. But if the expectations are still there of improving unreasonably quickly, then they will still feel stressed.

So the same has happened for me with my work. Just working less is not the solution. Just training less is not the solution. Actually, the solution is all [00:05:00] in the expectations we set for ourselves. In chess, that means not thinking that, well, if you train chess, then you need to improve X, y, Z points in a year.

I hear from a lot of improvers that say, well now this year I need to improve, I dunno, 200 points. Otherwise I need to quit chess because it doesn't make sense. When you have something like that, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, you likely won't feel the joy of improving chess and quality will go down. It's just a vicious cycle that you are entering.

For me, what was actually the solution is being okay with less than ideal standards. So I try telling myself, I'm okay if this week all my work leads to nothing. I'm okay if I stagnate for a year with my business. I'm okay if I don't work productively at all today.

This is not to say that I'm just giving myself a pass on anything and I don't care about [00:06:00] anything anymore, but I don't want to have the expectation of having to, for example, recording this podcast, if I have an expectation, at least, I dunno, 10,000 people should listen to it. Otherwise it make sense to spend the time on that.

Then maybe 9,000 people would listen to it and I would be disappointed. That would be super sad because it's super cool when a small town, like the same amount of a small town where I live, is actually listening to this podcast and I can help people improve their chess. So expectation setting is usually just a net negative.

Or in poker, they would say that it's a negative free role, meaning that in the best possible case, it's neutral, but you can only have downsides if you set a lot of expectations. And I'm talking about my own health because I really felt how big of a difference it makes. I had for a long time, really [00:07:00] serious health issues.

Again, really working two to three hours a day was the maximum my body gave me and I felt last year a huge improvement, and I had a period of a few months where I felt a hundred percent healthy again. Now that's a huge change, right? And this change didn't come when I had the strictest work schedule.

It didn't come when I had the highest expectations. It didn't come when every day I felt like, oh yeah, let's get the most out of it. Actually it came when I turned things around and I tried to lead with joy. I tried to feel more what I feel like doing. I tried not having clear goals set for this year for business, next year for business, what I need to do, where I should be, how many views I should get, how many courses I should sell, all of these things.

It's actually got much better when I paused a little bit and said, okay, let's do the things that I want to do [00:08:00] that I feel like doing, but without having this pressure of having to be perfect, not making any mistakes, or also having a certain amount, a certain number in my mind that I need to reach. 'cause when we have this number in mind for you at home, it can be a chess rating.

For me, it can be, again, an amount of how much the business makes, how many courses I sell, how many people I reach, whatever it can be. We can put everything in number. When we have these number goals, it's so dangerous that we feel stressed until we reach that goal. And that can push us, yes. But usually it can create a lot of negative stress.

And then comes the real big problem because for a long time what I was thinking is I realized that this was stressing me, but I thought, well, this is a great way to get better. So if you're listening to this and thinking, well, but I really want to get better. I really care about my [00:09:00] 1700 rating goal, 1500 rating goal.

And by the way, Noel, you're talking to me and you have a business, you have the grandmaster title. So it seems to work as well. The problem with it is that there is never this one goal that once you reach it, you are then going to be happy and relaxed afterwards because it's a habit that you are training, you're training yourself to say, basically, I'm unhappy until I reach a certain amount of rating points, certain business number, right?

The problem is because this is a habit, once you reach it, you've already made up a new number in your head. And you're going for that again. So for me, that would be like, oh, I need to reach 10,000 people with my podcast episode. Once I reach it, I already think, well, I need to reach 20,000, 30,000.

What? Whatever. It can always be more. Same with courses sold, same with rating for you. Once you reach 1500, you're not going to say, oh yeah, now I feel super happy about 1500. But you're putting [00:10:00] the same pressure on yourself to reach 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, and it's basically a vicious cycle that goes on forever.

So the problem with that is that even if you reach your goal, and I've reached quite some goals in my career and my business, you will likely already have a new one. That you have this kind of contract with yourself of, oh, until I reach this goal, I need to be stressed, unhappy, work a lot, push myself, this and that.

And I don't think that it's worth it. Like I don't think it's worth it for something like business, which still pays your bills. And especially for you guys at home, chess should be a hobby. It should be something that is fun. So it's definitely not worth it for a hobby when you say, oh, this hobby only makes sense if I win 200 points a year.

Now I'm all for improvement. But who the heck cares if you win 200 points or 120 points? If you enjoy your time spending on that [00:11:00] hobby, you're making some improvements and sometimes you can go for three months without feeling like you're doing improvements. You're just trying your best. And maybe there is something else in your life that is more pressing and you don't spend as much time and energy on chess and you're not getting better.

That's also fine. We really need to disconnect from these incredible expectations. And I see that especially if you're listening at home and you have worked yourself up the corporate ladder, you maybe had a different sport where you were very successful so you had any success in some kind somewhere.

That's usually the biggest similarity among people that have this kind of pressure on themselves, because you're used to being topnotch in some area, so you're feeling like, in chess, I also need to be that. Now the problem is chess is a very, very, very, very, very difficult game, and it will take time to get better at it.

The more pressure you put on yourself, the more stress you put on yourself, less you will [00:12:00] enjoy it. And the crazy thing is that you are likely also going to improve less, and this is really so important because if you're thinking every day you are training with that kind of stress, with that kind of expectation, I need to do more.

I need to also attend in the evening. I should still read a book. Maybe I should do more. Many of my students have a hard time taking a free day from chess per week because they feel they should train more. If you have that kind of stress, you're not going to put in quality work, which then will lead to worse games, which then will lead to worse results.

So you really can't force it. And this was also very interesting to see with myself with my health. It's not like when I put less stress on myself, when I put less expectations on myself that my work is getting worse. Because I'm still trying to do similar things. Maybe I'm allowing myself to [00:13:00] take an afternoon free, but then when I actually enjoy work, I'm not stressed as hell, and after three hours I'm totally exhausted, but I can do also more and I do it well, and my business is not even suffering from it.

So I think we also need to take that correlation away of like i'm putting so much stress and expectations on myself, then I will at least play better because for many of us, that will be enough to trick our brains into saying, yeah, it's worth it. I want to get better, so I need to put that stress on myself.

What I've learned in the past few years is that when I go to a tournament, for example, when I still played, when I went to a tournament with a little bit less expectations, but just saying, Hey, I try to make the best out of every single game. Try to enjoy the experience. I would play better, not worse. So if you are not doing it for your own wellbeing, if you're thinking, well, it's not worth it to relax a little bit more [00:14:00] because I really want to act really care about chess and I really need to reach that rating for whatever reason you feel like.

Then at least do it because, well, if you relax, you will actually be more likely to get there. So yes, write a training plan. Yes, think about how you want to improve, how you wanna spend your time.

Spend your time wisely. Don't waste your chess time. Don't just play bullet and say, I don't care. I don't worry, whatever. I don't mean that. Do your chess training, but don't think you need to achieve a certain rating for it to make sense to spend time on chess. Solve your puzzles, play your games, focus well, but don't focus because you're thinking, ah, if I lose this game, I will hate my life and I will feel so stupid.

But focus because you enjoy playing chess more when you're focused, because then you produce better games. There are more interesting moments to look at. You can learn more from the game and you [00:15:00] feel better about yourself because you're focused, not because of the result. I think that's so important. I hope this helped you.

This was a little bit of a freestyle episode because it's something that touches me a lot because it's something I wanna repeat to myself and because it's something I see in many of my students. And if it helps someone at home, it was worth it recording this. Here's to less expectations, more joy. And at the end of it, even though we don't do it only for the results, likely if you manage to get there, you'll also get better results through less stress.

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 [00:16:00] remain free, and it goes out every single Friday with the best latest chess improvement tips that I have. Most of the podcast episodes that I record are based on a previous newsletter. So getting the newsletter, you'll get the advice earlier and you'll get it directly into your inbox every single Friday.

It's totally free, as I mentioned, and you can unsubscribe any time. So go to nextlevelchess.com/newsletter to sign up. And one last thing. If you enjoyed this episode and if it helped you. Then please take a few seconds and review this podcast. This helps a ton. It helps other people see, oh yeah, many, many people profit from the advice given in this podcast.

Let's give this podcast a try, and if you can, if you know anyone in the chess world that would profit from this episode or any other episode. [00:17:00] Make sure to share it with your friends, with your people online. That's super helpful. Podcast growth is really just working through mouth by mouth recommendations, so thank you.

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you for spreading the word about the Next Level Chess podcast. Now, that's all from me. Thank you for listening and see you next time.