Feeling Rushed

For me the feeling of being rushed is one of the worst.

This feeling can come from two sides. One is the external one, when a lot of external obligations and commitments have to be completed. While tiring, this one doesn’t affect me that much because “it is something that needs to be done.”

The other side is the one that causes me a lot of problems. It is the internal drive that rushes me to do many things and doesn’t let me be at peace. Normally I would rush myself internally for things that do not have an external deadline but my innate workaholic is pushing me forward insanely just out of habit.

Often I won’t notice this constant “go-go-go” and before long I’d be feeling miserable.

Discover My Chessable Courses

While I do have a lot of things to do in my life, most of them I can do at my own pace. Unfortunately, when not being aware of it, my pace quickly becomes frantic and then misery sets it.

As with all things, increased awareness is the key. Sometimes, in this task, even my chess blunders are helpful.

Playing White I outplayed my FM opponent and I knew I was winning. But instead of playing the natural c4 with the idea of c5 (if ...b6 then b4 and c5 cannot be stopped) I thought I was winning quickly.

Share GM Alex Colovic's Newsletter

35.Re3??

Immediately after playing it I saw the move 35...c5! which allows Black to take the pawn on d6 and equalise.

But, I was given a second chance, with another move I missed. 35...Qd5?!

Excited that I got another chance I quickly played 36.Qf6?? Even though I saw that exchanging the queens and playing Re7 was still a very good rook endgame for me. But as before my 35th move I thought (as a result of wanting it to be true) I was winning on the spot and missed the simplest 36...Qd1 and he picked up my d6-pawn with check.

To make things worse, this move is the only move for Black.

I still had the presence of mind to offer a draw after the exchange of queens, an offer he accepted. Quite an awful end of a well-played game.

Still, the game made me realise that the feeling of self-imposed rush has spilled over to my chess as well. I have always thought that in chess I had much more control, but apparently I have lost some of it.

It is quite clear that the feeling of being rushed is affecting me in a negative way, not only outside of chess, but also in it. I think that controlling the feeling during a game of chess will be easier, the bigger challenge will be to keep it under control in real life. It will require self-control and hightened awareness, but with this realisation, that it has become ever-present, I hope my chances of reducing it are higher.

Get The Method: Chess Improvement Bundle

P.S. If you (rightfully) thought the game above was bad, here’s a peek into what bad means on World Championship level. Even World Champions can have bad days, but their bad days are still infinitely better than our best days. On their bad days they still play fairly well and it takes an opponent of their caliber to take advantage of those bad days and suboptimal play. Take a look at the game Korchnoi-Karpov here to see how Korchnoi accurately took advantage of Karpov’s mistakes, while at the same time don’t miss the chance to learn from their play outside of the mistakes.