Empowerly

Student profile

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 

I credit my victory in the National Chess Championships to a long series of mistakes. I have experienced many losses in my chess career, and through these failures I have improved by carefully and methodically analyzing my mistakes. In chess we call this the “art of analysis”.

After my first few years of rapid growth into the top ten in my age group, I experienced a period of stagnation. My performances in tournaments became inconsistent. A new coach saw that I possessed a special talent for taking initiative and using great intuition in risky positions. He cautioned that although playing unbalanced positions as a default strategy had served me well at times, it isn't a good way to develop consistency. As an improvement exercise, I started annotating my games and recorded not only my reasons for choosing the moves that I played, but also what I was feeling at the time. Clear patterns quickly began to emerge. I lost a huge number of the games due to impulsively attempting to steer the game toward risky positions. I lost another significant number of my games due to loss of composure. A smirk on my opponent’s face after a good move would invariably result in my lashing out wanting to punish him immediately. As I started to control my impulses, I also started to see an improvement in my performance. Finally, at the age of thirteen, I won the title of National Master.

Since then, I have applied the art of analysis successfully to other areas of my life. I have come to realize however, that applying the art of analysis to real life situations not only requires discipline and attentiveness, but also an acceptance of the problem. During my sophomore year, I had an exciting streak in chess. Encouraged by my play, I started committing even more time to chess, attending tournaments almost every weekend. I had a fairly heavy workload at school and my grades started slipping. I always had an excuse for a bad test score and was confident that I would make up for a poor performance in the next test. I didn’t accept the fact that I had developed bad work habits. Although I was putting in time for my school work, I was disinterested and doing only the minimum amount of work necessary. Another clue that I ignored was that I was tired and cranky all the time from not getting any downtime without the pressures of chess or school. Once I stopped making excuses and accepted that I had a problem, analyzing the problem and fixing it was easy. I became very conscious of my work habits and made sure that while I worked I did so with maximum focus and accountability. I also ensured that I had downtime when I could relax with friends. Despite having a heavier school workload in my junior year I was a much happier person and did well in school.

Being human I am bound to make mistakes. Through chess I have learned that sometimes mistakes are even more rewarding than successes, as they help me prioritize my efforts towards improving my weaknesses. However, I have also realized that as we improve one area of life another part of our life can become a problem. By remaining vigilant and continuing to use the art of analysis with an open mind I can make the process of self-improvement less daunting.