Pseudo-controversial advice on chess mindset

When people talk about mindset, they tend to do so in very vague ways. Attitude too. It feels like these two words are most commonly used when one person doesn't like another, in sort of a "fuck this guy, he has a bad attitude" sort of way. Everyone I've asked about what mindset is just refuses to elaborate.

Here's my definition: Attitude is a goal that serves as an organizing principle for your decisions. That's it. Oftentimes if you put one attitude next to another, you will see that they oppose each other. For example, a goal such as "win two chess tournaments in a row" vs "win a chess tournament" implies very different decisions. Two wins in a row prevents you from cheekily trying to win a tournament while flying by the seat of your pants. If two in a row is your goal, the only way to get there is through being strong. You can't hope to get lucky.

So let's talk about your mindset. If you've just lost 200 elo due to tilt, the fix is in your mindset. Think about it: If you lose a game, and then feel like you have to compensate for the humiliation, so you play another and lose that too, what goal do these choices and feelings support? Well I would say that your goal might be to have a fearsome reputation. You feel like a loss impinges on what people will think of you and so you have to make up for it. On chess com or lichess, of all places .. where nobody gives a flying fuck about your reputation.

It's silly on the face of it. Nonetheless, most bad decisions come from letting life choose your mindset instead of choosing it on purpose. People who make bad decisions are often not taking stock of how their situation has changed; thus their mind is issuing checks that their brain can't cash.

Imagine if you will: you've been training chess several times a week for 3 months and you've slowly risen from 1100 to 1400. Then you take a one month break because you've decided to go to Greece on vacation to see the sights. When you come back, you have no idea why you're losing all your games, and of course you think something must be wrong with your brain. It's literally just mindset, though. The mindset you had before you went on vacation is not the same mindset you can afford to have when you come back. That mindset was compatible with 3 months of regular study and practice. No practice will make you rusty, and when you're rusty you can't hope to play the same way you did back then.

A better goal in a case like that would be to play less ambitiously. Play like a 1100 would for a while and refresh your memories. Look at the exercises you used to be doing and do lighter versions of them. Try to slowly get back into your groove. Don't expect that your brain will have kept the neural pathways it wasn't using for an entire month. Don't write checks that your body can't cash.