3 Lessons That Chess Can Teach Us About Life

We have to accept the fact that we are not all the same.

Each one of us has our own skills, our own strengths, and our own preferences in life. This is an exact mirror of the situation on the magical white and black chess board.

In this article, I will explain how we can use the ancient secrets of chess to improve our vision and mindset in our life and maybe learn a trick or two for our next game, whether it is chess or not.

Almost everyone knows, even those who don’t play chess, that the pawn is the weakest piece in chess and there are eight of them. However, what is not so obvious is that even this humble piece can win you the game if played right. Some of these pawns you can easily sacrifice and some you defend as if they were the queen, depending on the situation. So the lesson here is: if you have limited skills and strengths, always position yourself in situations that make you indispensable. This reminds me of Donna, the charming secretary of Harvey Specter in the hit series Suits. While the job itself is not that demanding or fascinating, she managed to make herself indispensable to one of the greatest lawyers.

How did she do that?

She found a way to push her services a little further and to come up with simple but unique ways that people would admire about her.

Another thing that we can learn from chess is the value of long-term planning. World-class chess players, who win most of the time, understand this very well and plan their moves 10 steps ahead. This skill can also be applied in real life, especially for young professionals. While you are graduating from high school and choosing what you would like to major in, it is helpful to plan also for your career after that.

• What type of companies do you want to join?
• What kind of skills do you need to develop?

This will help you excel in your life and in your career. Always look ahead and try to imagine what you can do now that can help you in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years

While long-term planning is expected from chess players, the real gem lies in being able to modify and adapt as you go along. Having this flexibility is the true essence of a real chess warrior. Long-term planning is appreciated and helps you to draw the big picture and set the main goals, but this flexibility is required in order to navigate through unexpected moves, which are very common in a real chess battle. You can almost never know what your opponent is going to play next, as there are almost 10 to the power 120 possible moves in a game of chess, and this is a really big number. Being able to adapt as you go is also required in our ordinary life. Life is unpredictable, like a chess game, we almost never know what will happen to us next. Keep this flexibility in mind and be ready.

Chess is not only a game of strategy, skill, and fun, but also a game of life. Chess can teach us valuable lessons about how to position ourselves, how to plan ahead, and how to adapt to changing circumstances.