Building Multiple 'Pillars' To Support Yourself In Achieving Your Chess Goals
Introduction
Why is it that some chess improvers will achieve their chess goals in 2024...but most won't?
Something I often talk about in my recent content is the 'mental game' of chess and chess improvement.
The mental game is a broad spectrum of challenges relating to practical decision-making at the chess board, the psychology affecting both over-the-board decisions and our training, and how our thoughts influence whether we are consistent with supportive habits, employ them sporadically, or avoid them altogether.
I've shared my modified 'Why' exercise several times already, but today, I want to take things from a different and more personal perspective.
I've used the metaphor of 'pillars' because we all know that a building resting on just one pillar is likely to collapse, right?
On the other hand, a building with many strong pillars will stay strong, with no risk of collapse.
Let's discover what those strong pillars can look like for you.
What Makes The Difference For Me
You see, I've noticed a clear distinction between the goals I set that I achieved, and those I did not achieve.
For the goals I didn't achieve, there was only one major thing driving me to achieve that goal.
But for the big goals I achieved in my life, there were several major factors (pillars) supporting and driving me to success.
Let's take two of the most prominent examples:
Becoming A Chess Grandmaster
When I was 8 years old, I already had a dream of becoming a chess Grandmaster.
A common misconception is that just having a deep love for something is enough to achieve greatly in that area.
It's certainly an essential ingredient (you won't succeed in the long-term doing something you despise), but there were many other motivations for me to achieve this goal:
- I knew it would be a very tough goal, but seeing my results improve would give me a feeling of progress.
- I would have a clear direction for my life, an 'umbrella' that would dictate what decision would move me closer to this goal, or distract me from it. (For instance, in high school, I didn't go to a lot of parties on the weekend, or expend a lot of time and energy trying to get a girlfriend, as I was focused on improving myself)
- I was meeting a lot of interesting people along the way, and having many new and rewarding experiences that wouldn't be happening without chess.
- Even when things at school or in the family home were tumultuous, chess provided an escape where I could focus on myself and work to improve my current situation.
- Later on, chess provided a career path for me, where I could support my dream of becoming a Grandmaster through coaching and writing. Over time, I grew to love these activities even more than playing chess.
I'm also going to take a business example so that you can see the parallels.
Running A Highly Successful Group Coaching Program
While I have been running a paid chess coaching business since 2011 (and helping people improve their chess for a decade longer than that), it was often not my primary focus, due to having other things that were important to me (mostly, improving as a chess player).
When I did focus primarily on coaching, however, my results were considerably better.
When I started my group chess coaching program at the start of 2022, my motivation went far beyond financial freedom (not having to work again, retiring my wife, and creating generational wealth):
- I'd experienced the power of group coaching in my life in other fields and wanted to bring such transformation to chess improvers who hadn't found success with what they'd tried thus far.
To give a concrete example: when traveling to the US for the first time in April 2019, I had some problems with my voice projection, where I wasn't speaking from my diaphragm, and my vocal chords were damaged. I left the US not only with a physically much clearer and more powerful voice, but with far greater confidence, and a feeling that people listened to me and that my ideas matter.
- I found it very satisfying to see that the system I'd created, and the coaching I delivered, was bringing results for my students. (Many of my students in the group coaching program improved their ratings by 100+ points within three months, thanks to being able to provide more help to them than what a 1-hour private lesson each week allows).
- I felt that I was realizing my true potential as a person, by evolving to greater challenges, learning new skills, and even having the courage to hire employees to help me and my students - a control I would have been far too afraid to relinquish in the past.
Given all these great motivations (not to mention making far more money per month than I had any other time in my life), you may be wondering - what caused things to go wrong?
Exercise
In the previous two sections, I shared examples of the first type of pillar: human drives.
I will dive deeper into how to leverage your human drives later in this post - but for now, I have an exercise for you.
What would you say are the biggest three 'drives' for you to do something (or not do something)?
Write them down, so that you can apply the insights from this post to your chess training afterward (rather than feeling smarter but not doing anything with what you learned).
Common Challenges When Trying To Achieve Big Goals/Build On Initial Success
Let's go back to the example of my former group coaching program - where I enjoyed great success before later 'crashing and burning'.
I felt a lot better when I recently learned that the highly successful and multi-talented James Altucher went through the same experience several times. Perhaps you will also feel better knowing you are not the only one to have tried and failed. (You're still way ahead of the majority who never really tried at all in that field).
In retrospect, a major reason I 'crashed and burned' was due to my relationships (or lack thereof) with various support systems.
For most people, your failures won't be quite as spectacular...
It may be more of a 'quiet quit' where you steadily disengage with your old goal, as you either lose sight of the meaning or purpose of it, or where you're so lost on where to go, that the lack of direction leads you to lose hope and give up.
Nonetheless, the causes are similar:
- Lack of emotional support - Let's face it, chess is an emotionally taxing game. If you don't have someone to talk to during the tough moments (a bad loss or tournament), it can be easy to feel alone on the journey.
- Lack of clear direction - As noted before, not knowing what to do can lead to a lot of frustration and doubt. It can be even more vexing when you trust someone's process and follow it, only to find that it didn't work for you at all (as you 'wasted' a lot of time and energy, possibly money as well).
- Lack of validation/recognition - While Adlerian psychology encourages us to detach ourselves from external recognition, the reality is, that it's human nature to need to feel heard, recognized, appreciated, and understood. (If you've talked to me, you will notice I explicitly use these words in my coaching and messaging; frankly, this is a good reminder to do even more of that).
- Lack of social support - If we don't have a mentor to guide us, it's easy to feel lost or overwhelmed on our chess journey. If we don't have others around our level to communicate our struggles with, we may not feel fully understood.
- Lack of instrumental support - We may know what we need to work on, but not know where the resources lie to resolve them. Or we may feel like we have to do everything ourselves, stretching our already limited time and energy.
- Lack of 'Mental Game' support - Sometimes, we sense there are some mental 'blockers' stopping us from realizing our full potential, starting helpful habits, or otherwise doing what needs to be done. But we don't know what they are, or some unhelpful pattern of thought has become so automatic, that we don't question it or consider that there may be a better way of approaching the situation.
Building Your Pillars Of External Support
The root issue I felt, while running my group chess coaching program in 2022, was that, for every support system I tried to build, others would try to tear it down.
I suppose now, with the help of studying and applying Stoic philosophy, I realize that others' thoughts and opinions hold no power over me, unless I allow them to.
In any case, I ask you now - what are the types of support you're going to enlist to help you achieve your chess goals?
It's vital to brainstorm ideas for this before I give you the answer - getting you to 'retrieve' concepts from your recent memory, and apply them to your situation, is far more powerful than anyone telling you what to do (no matter what the advice is).
You'll only do things consistently when you take ownership of the process.
And it's far easier to take ownership of your idea than someone else's, true or true?
The Pillars Of External Support, Explained
Now it's time to give you feedback on your initial answer so that you can adapt your ideas and see the best ways to implement them in your own life and training.
Here are the key pillars of external support:
- Emotional Support - It may sound a truism to suggest that you 'spend more time with people who help you feel great, and less time with those who contribute to you feeling down', but this awareness can make a huge difference to the energy you bring to your practice. Specifically, you'll be looking for encouragement (positive words), empathy (so that you feel understood), and validation (that your feelings and experiences are real, and I acknowledge what you're going through - you're not the only one).
- Informational Support - This is the type of support most clearly linked with coaching (although a great coach provides all the other types of support as well). Just knowing what you should do for your situation (seeing past all the 'white noise') gives you such clarity, focus, and engagement in your chess training. And when you know how to do it as well, it's far easier to keep doing the things that will see you eventually achieve your goals.
- Positive Reinforcement - Many chess improvers (myself included in the past) get so focused on what they're doing wrong, but there's also a place for recognizing what you're doing right. Many of us are our own worst critics, and having someone in your corner to remind you of how far you come, or to see the effort you're putting in, can keep our 'fire' burning to improve.
It's also an essential aspect of setting up new habits - ensuring that we have a clear 'cue' to start the habit, then, on starting our desired 'behavior' (habit), we ultimately enjoy a 'reward' that leads us to 'crave' doing that habit more often.
As a diagram: Cue -> Routine -> Reward -> Craving (From 'The Power Of Habit' by Charles Duhigg).
- Social support - Having someone 'in your corner' to discuss challenges with, makes these challenges feel less daunting/overbearing, and also helps us to focus on the solution, rather than the problem. An ideal mix of such support is to engage with players ahead of you (to learn), players around your level (to discuss and encourage), and players below your level (to teach, for teaching something is the most powerful way to master it yourself). I borrowed this last idea from James Altucher - he calls it '+1/=/-1'.
- Instrumental Support - this refers to having people doing tasks for you to make your life easier. This is not limited to outsourcing tasks (such as buying chess material to fix a weakness); effectively communicating your needs with your partner/family can give you the space you need to fully focus during your chess training.
- 'Mental Game' Support - this can take many forms. In my case, I've found that, since talking with a psychologist in 2023, my barriers to action have seemingly melted away, and I act much more freely and with far more purpose than in the past (when my actions were motivated more by avoiding pain).
You could reasonably opine that many of the above types of support also fit under the 'mental game'. But there are many other levels to it - from physical health habits (diet, sleep, exercise) to more spiritual ones such as prayer or meditation.
You don't necessarily need all of these types of support to be successful, but you need several of them for sustainable success.
Which of these types of support are you going to enlist today?
Is there a way you can enjoy several of these types of support within one activity?
The Pillars Of Internal Support
In my recent study of different topics, it's been interesting to observe different experts' perspectives on support.
A common response to someone complaining about a lack of support is, 'You can't rely on others to get you to where you want to be. You have to learn to rely on yourself.'
While such a pattern interrupt is certainly effective in shifting the focus away from complaining (which never solved any problem) and toward ideating solutions, the ideal support system will combine self-awareness and self-reliance with several of the external pillars mentioned above.
You may recall that earlier in the post, I wrote briefly of the 'human needs', and got you to write down your three greatest human needs.
I'm now going to share the six human needs that drive your actions:
- Certainty
- Uncertainty/Variety
- Significance
- Connection/Love
- Growth
- Contribution
This is not my model - it comes from the works of Tony Robbins on human psychology.
I've intentionally not rushed to explain each of these, to give you the space to figure out what each of these needs means for you.
It's normal to feel one need more strongly than another.
You may have observed some duality in our needs; the most obvious example being that, if everything is certain, we easily get bored and disengage; and yet, if things are always uncertain, we become increasingly insecure, and subsequently lack the focus necessary to reach our full potential in something.
I know that significance is a big one for me - much like people who have had near-death experiences and discovered what life is like when you're in what you think is your final moments, I want to know, at my life's end, that my life (and what I did with it) mattered. This is an extension of the 'Memento Mori' concept from Stoic philosophy, of accepting that our life is finite and using that as fuel to make the most of every minute we have in this world.
Connection and love will also mean different things to each person. One of the most profound concepts I grasped from Buddhist philosophies was the idea of 'loving all living beings'. One of my big goals for 2024 is to continuously be deeply engaged with other people (and in whatever it is I'm doing).
I still have a lot of work to do in this area (I have 20 tabs open on Google Chrome as I write this, and I still check other tabs while waiting for people to reply to me in Messenger), but I can already feel a difference in my interactions with others (both verbally and in more parasocial contexts, like you reading my content, or me studying my mentors' resources and reflecting on how those ideas may pertain to your struggles).
If you're serious about improving at chess, then Growth is likely to be a big driver for you. I know that when I was improving at chess, I felt like I was growing overall as a person. Maybe you haven't thought of it quite like that, but perhaps you also enjoy a similar feeling of progress?
As someone who's studied a lot of self-help/self-improvement resources over the years, I see how chess is very often that 'self-improvement' tool for the majority of us who find greater rewards in applying something and seeing the results for ourselves, rather than just reading/learning about it. The things we discover for ourselves (rather than only understanding intellectually) are often the most fulfilling, but it takes a great mentor (be it life, a wonderful book/video, or a coach) to open that door for us.
When it comes to chess improvement, I find that the drive of contribution is the one that chess players connect the least with. After all, not all of us are going to share our experiences of how we became a chess expert or chess master with others walking the same path, and that's okay.
But there's a lot more to contribution than 'staying in your lane'. This post is one such example, where you're learning about what drives you (and how to leverage your human drives to achieve your goals) on a chess website. That application goes way beyond chess, but chess is what brought you here.
I believe that someone who overcomes their struggles in chess, and achieves their goals, is an inspiration and role model for others.
Your family may not always see your effort, but you know that doing your best (and showing grit in the face of adversity) will influence many people around you.
Your children may not understand the deeper reasons for you sitting in front of the chess board every day, but they'll appreciate the value of applying yourself fully, working hard and smart, and making time for the things you love, through your example.
Your friends may not necessarily share your interest in chess, but they'll remember that the conversations they had with you were somehow 'different' from those with their other friends.
Your community may not even know that you play chess, but you'll have a different presence from your chess experiences, and be able to offer unique perspectives to the challenges others face, which can prove very valuable.
If you can now see the value of something that you previously dismissed or took for granted, then I believe you can also see how the more 'obviously' significant drives for you can have a 'butterfly' impact on your world and the world as a whole.
Summary
This was a rather long post because the skill of achieving your goals matters - and not just to you.
I don't want to see you fail in the ways I failed in the past (when I didn't know what I know now).
That's why I've shared with you the pillars for success in chess - both the internal pillars and external pillars.
Can you remember some of these pillars?
To recap, the external pillars are:
- Emotional Support;
- Informational Support;
- Positive Reinforcement;
- Social Support;
- Instrumental Support;
- 'Mental Game' Support
The internal pillars are:
- Certainty
- Uncertainty/Variety
- Significance
- Connection/Love
- Growth
- Contribution
Comment below: Which of these pillars are you going to build on today?
If you'd like to experience all of these 'pillars' at once, you can do so through my chess coaching. The best way to start the conversation about your chess is to privately message me via. this link.
