I think I'm on an 11-12 day streak. I'm 20 years old and I've been playing football with my friends since I was 6-7. I started playing chess at the end of 2020, and I've always been known for being good at both football and chess. In chess, I've seen a rapid score of 2050 on chess.com, and in football, I've always been a very reliable team player. However, I never did any extra training or anything like that in either of these areas throughout my life, so I thought I had reached the limit of what I could do as a hobby for a long time. But thanks to this 12-day SR process, I've incredibly realized that I was wrong. I'll divide it into sections and write about where I've improved.
Football
My defense, passing, game intelligence, and stamina are my standout features, and I have a profile of a player who constantly makes overlapping runs from the center-back/full-back position in 7-7 matches. My technique, dribbling, and shooting aren't actually that bad, but I couldn't show these qualities in matches. Now, SR... During this process, when I get the ball, I try to dribble vertically and take more shots (normally I would take a maximum of 1 shot per match). I am more effective and aggressive on the field, especially offensively, and this is reflected in my scoring contribution; I have started to score more goals and I can even compete on equal terms with youth players. A friend of mine noticed this change and said that I try to dribble and shoot much more these days and that I am better than I used to be.
Chess
I hadn't played much chess in the last week, so today I decided to try some blitz (3+2). I'm not usually very strong at blitz (1800 chess.com), but the chess I played today really impressed me. I played 6-7 games, and what surprised me most was that I, normally a positional player, started playing more aggressively and taking risks. I've become better at planning, and now I'm playing more patiently – more aggressive, but not in an empty, superficial way. I patiently plan my attacks and try to use my pieces in the most effective way to checkmate my opponent. All of this is great, but my weakest point, my ability to fall apart when I make a mistake or under a lot of pressure, has improved incredibly. Even when I was behind in points in the last 5-10 seconds, I managed to find amazing defensive moves and constantly resorted to the most resilient continuations. I felt almost like Sergey Karjakin in the games I played today :D