Know thyself

I have previously said that to master chess there are 4 components you need to focus on. These are understanding yourself, your opponent, the clock and the board.

All these components are important to development of critical judgement and evaluation skills.

And the very first step is understanding yourself. You see, it is your judgement and evaluation that is needed to win on the board. If you cannot see your own biaseness in evaluating then you are that far from seeing accurately, from seeing reality.

The biggest problem is imagined fears. Your body cannot tell the difference from imagined or real fears. And if you cannot tell them apart you will not be able to respond appropriately.

So the first step in understanding yourself is to open your mind to another view point. Try to understand one more person apart from yourself. In that journey you will see how your own mind works. Where your biaseness come from. If you succeed you will be one step closer to reality and one step closer to understanding what is going on around you. One step closer to accurate evaluation and critical judgement.

Ergo, to beat your opponent you need to see their thinking process clearly and to do that you first need to clear your own mind.

The above is a synopsis of what was shared at the Asean training camp during my session.