Consistency

Since I was a kid, I have been playing football and watching interviews of famous footballers, because my dream was to become a professional football player. I noticed that almost every single player said that the key to being a good athlete, no matter the sport, is hard work, and the ability to stay consistent with it. But there are millions of little kids who are dreaming of becoming professional athletes. So if there is such a small number of them who achieve their goal, does it mean all of the others struggled with staying consistent and working hard enough? I did some research to know exactly what “consistency” is, and I ended up asking myself this question: Why do people tend to struggle with consistency and why is it so important? 

"Results happen over time, not over night. Work hard, stay consistent, and be patient." -Cristiano Ronaldo

Consistency is the ability to stick with something and keep doing it in order to reach some goals. Athletes have to follow a rigorous plan in order to reach the highest level they can possibly achieve. It is about following it and showing up day after day, week after week, without giving up or skipping parts of it to try to make it less laborious or trying to make it shorter and easier. Because there are no shortcuts and the best athletes in the world have all trained their whole life to achieve what they have accomplished.

As I was becoming more and more serious about football, and starting to play for better teams, I quickly realised why consistency in sports was a struggle for a lot of athletes, including myself. 

Consistency is hard because the human brain often automatically seeks for immediate results and quick progress, which could leave us disappointed when we realise that our performances were not impacted after a week or two of intensive training, and impact our trust in the process and our self confidence. It makes it easy to get bored or annoyed, because the repetition of the efforts can lead to a loss of interest and a lack of motivation.

Some other factors could also impact our commitment. The weather plays a role in our motivation, and can make people skip training because it is harder mentally to train in the rain, the snow, the cold or the wind. Some days we could also be more tired and less focused due to some other aspects of our lives (like work, family, social life…) that impact our mood and take some of our time we could have spent resting or recovering. 

If it is often mentally hard to be consistent, it can also be hard physically. The amount of work we put in leads to soreness and tiredness, which could also have an impact on performances and motivation. 

Those are the main reasons why consistency in sport can be challenging for most people, both mentally and physically. 

By trying to overcome this challenge, I came up with some solutions that helped me stay consistent. Setting up a plan that was coherent with the goals I wanted to achieve helped to get the right results and maximalised the efficiency of my process. A schedule is also very helpful with organization, which reduces stress and anxiety. It gives a routine and a rhythm, to make it easier for the body to adapt with the physical and mental charges. 

One of the mistakes I made was to think that the more I worked, the more I would progress. So, I ended up training at the highest intensity possible every single time without giving myself enough rest, which did not allow my body to recover fully and slowed down my progression and increased the risk of injury.  By pushing myself a lot every time, the intensity of the training sessions dropped because of overcharge. I realised that not every session should be a huge effort and it is critical to rest enough in between those high intensity sessions.

On the mental side, giving myself smaller goals, achievable weekly or daily, could boost my self confidence and motivation because it helped me see my progress and made my routine less monotonous and boring. Celebrating small victories gives the motivation to keep showing up everyday. 

After working hard and training several times a week for a few years, I was eventually able to understand why consistency is critical in the process of becoming a high level athlete. It is the best way to achieve the level targeted while keeping track of your progress and repeating the efforts will not only train the muscles but also train the mind to command the muscles quicker and automatically when needed. By doing enough repetitions, the muscle memory will be trained and the movements will become more and more spontaneous. Following a plan also helps prevent injuries, because it helps finding the right balance of training, which will prevent the muscles from being overcharged. It will also build strength and flexibility while allowing the body to gradually adapt to the amount of work, reducing the risk of strains and sprains. Consistency also builds discipline, which can be useful in other aspects of life such as work and studies. 

Finally, being consistent helps build results from the base, providing a long term athletic shape which will make the muscles stay longer, meaning a speedy recovery in case of injury.   

"One of the things about my sport that's important is consistency - being able to do your routines consistently and training consistently. If you change it up or try to make everything more intense because the Olympics is coming up, you tend to put too much pressure on your mind and your body." -Jonathan Horton

To conclude, consistency in sports can be really hard both mentally and physically, even for high level athletes. It is a tiring process and it is very easy to lose motivation and interest. It can seem like a long process but building a plan helps with organisation and stress, making it easier to stay committed. Rest is also highly important to reduce the risks of injuries. Consistency is a very important quality to have as an athlete because it helps reaching goals in a more efficient way. It trains the muscle memory, prevents injuries, builds strength, flexibility and discipline.

Losing Elo in Chess

In chess, there is a point system also known as elo, which was invented by a person named Arpad Elo. Many people have a goal for their elo. For me, it used to be to break through 1000 elo, because it is a very important milestone as this not only allows you to reach an elo of 4-digits for the first time, but also allows you to beat more than half of the players who play on the website, as most people are under 1000 elo. And eventually I broke it and made a new goal of 1200 elo. But as soon as I was one game away from reaching my milestone, I began to lose a lot of games and got back down to 1150 elo. Today, I will be exploring the reasons why this may happen, in case any of you are also facing the same problem as I was.

What is this problem of not being able to win? This problem is called a tilt, or tilting. This term is used in gaming and poker, which is when you become angry or frustrated to the point where you begin to play in a way that is not the best for you, or simply sub-optimally. For example, in poker, an unsuited seven deuce is known as the worst hand in poker, and perhaps you have lost a lot of money in the past few rounds. If you get angry with the game and perhaps go all in with this hand of cards, you might be called tilted. In chess, you may continuously lose the games that you play, and get angry because of this. This may even cause you to play more aggressively than you usually do, making it likelier for you to risk another loss. 

So now that we understand what happens during a tilt, let’s look deeper into what causes a tilt. There are multiple factors that may lead to tilting. Firstly, you may feel pressured to reach your goal, or compare yourself with your friends. This may cause you to try to go aggressive in order to win the game and try to reach your goal. I believe that this was one of my main reasons why I was not able to reach 1200 elo for a while. Another cause of tilting is due to facing cheaters. You may feel unhappy about the game pairing you up with a cheater, and this may affect your game. I have never experienced this, but I have been a bit angry that my opponent is playing so well which caused me to play my next game quite terribly. As a matter of fact, playing safely allows you to defeat your opponent better than being too aggressive, although playing aggressively can sometimes let you win. The final reason that may lead to a tilt in your elo is because you are playing too much without a break. This may cause stress and lead you to lose your matches, perhaps even against worse opponents.

A big question now that comes into your mind is probably “how do you avoid tilting?”, and  that is a great question. First, calm yourself down. You probably have heard these, but breathe slowly: taking a breath in, and a breath out. Try to ignore the previous games that you have played, as they are in the past. You want to learn from your mistakes, but you do not want to focus on the fact that you lost the game, as that would likely cause tilting. Instead, take it as an opportunity to learn from your mistakes, and perhaps even how your opponent didn’t manage to fully capitalize their winning position to a complete win. This way, you learn and become better at this game. If you are still losing, take a break from playing chess. You can even watch how other players play chess by watching chess streamers. You might be able to learn a few things from them. And finally, ensure to play only up to the point that you know you can enjoy the game. I used to play 20 chess games in one session that lasted around 2 hours, but now I know better and play 2 to 3 games of chess every day, allowing me to take my time reaching my goal.

I hope these tips help you overcome your continuous loss in elo and hopefully allow you to recover and reach your goal of the elo you want. Make sure to enjoy and have fun.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#:~:text=The%20Elo%20rating%20system%20is,chess%20master%20and%20physics%20professor.

https://gametree.me/gaming-terms/tilt/#:~:text=Tilt%20in%20gaming%20refers%20to,decision%2Dmaking%20and%20suboptimal%20play.