Practising is the most important thing one can do to improve. Whether you’re a world champion or a new player, you will not grow anymore if you don’t practice. 

Practising daily and deliberately is the most efficient way to ensure you get better and develop good habits.

Practising isn’t playing for the sake of playing, it isn’t putting hours in for fun nor is it competing in tournaments.

Practising is putting time in with a clear goal in mind of what you want to improve at and what you’re going to focus on to achieve that.

Putting time in without a clear focus is typically unhelpful as whatever bad habits you have will only get more ingrained and harder to remove later on.

Steps to ensure proper practice:

1st - Self-Evaluation - Figure out your weaknesses and strengths 

To figure out what your strengths and weak spots are, self-evaluation is required. It can be a very rough thing to do for some players, as it requires humility and self-criticism. Watch a few vods of yourself, preferably with someone else that can be honest with you to give you a different perspective. Write down every single mistake you spot and especially repeated mistakes, in a way that it highlights what the problem was (eg. “wrong weapon out x6, whining when dead x13, bad communication x3, fighting without cover x5, tilt x9, missed shot x2”).

It’s very important while doing this that you do your best to analyse what problem was in the situation that you’re looking at, was the problem really your aim, or was it that you put yourself in a position that has no cover and no way for anyone else to help vs multiple enemies? You might’ve missed the shot or had no time to even react but that doesn’t always mean it was a mechanical fail, you have to be brutally honest to yourself.

Would you go for that decision again vs any opponent if your aim was feeling off that day? If you can say yes with 100% certainty, then you can write it down as a mechanical failure and know you might need to work on that soon.

2nd - Set a goal - Decide what to practice

Now that you know your weak spots and your strengths, it’s time to choose what you will focus on to improve. You might need to improve in a lot of areas, but it’s important to focus on no more than one or two at a time to ensure the best amount of focus.

What you want to practice vs. what you should practice:

You might want to improve your mechanical ability because it’s not maxed out yet, as you’re not winning every single clutch situation vs multiple opponents nor have you attained perfect aim yet. Will working on your mechanics make a better player? Yes, of course, improvement is improvement.

Is that what you should be working on though? Does working on your aim make you a better player compared to you working on your communication or your positioning or decision making?

It comes down to what your weak spots as a player are. Just like a team is as strong as its weakest link, you are as good as your biggest weakness allows you to be, so that’s what you should be working on. The more you can increase your skill floor (your lowest level of performance), the higher and more consistent your overall performance will be.

If your aim isn’t perfect but you’re very capable and you can spot clear flaws in your communication or tilt control, working on those things instead will be your best move.

3rd - Making a plan - Figure how to improve the skill you want to get better at

You now have a clear focus in mind of what skill you are going to try and improve at. Now, you have to discover how to hone that skill.

This will require you to watch games of yourself and see if there is anything that triggers you to underperform in that certain area. Maybe it’s repeated situations where you are too eager to shoot your enemy so you put yourself in harm's way, or you miss a shot and it causes you to become increasingly more frustrated.

Regardless of whatever it is, before you get ingame, write some notes on what exactly you want to focus on and what steps to take to make sure you’re focusing on it. If you want to work on better positioning, you should write notes in the lines of “check minimap every 5 seconds” “ask myself am I in the best position right now?”.

4th - Work on it - Consistency and dedication vs motivation

Now that you’re aware of your strengths and weaknesses, have decided what to work on and how you’re going to work on it, the last step is to put in the time doing so.

The problems one might encounter during this step are procrastination and lack of motivation. Let’s talk about how to try and fix these issues to guarantee a more productive environment.

Procrastination often comes from the indecisiveness of when to start something. We procrastinate not because we don’t want to do something, but because we can’t bring ourselves to start it.

Setting schedules is a great way to overcome this problem.Instead of thinking “I have to work on this”, it’s important to specify WHEN because vagueness allows our mind to create excuses to further delay the start of something. Defining a fixed starting time mentally prepares you to be ready to start when the hour finally comes, so start thinking “I WILL work on this TOMORROW at 18:00 until 18:45”.

Another of the issues is the lack of motivation, which originates from getting discouraged and overwhelmed when you look at all the things that you have to do to get to where you want to be. This happens because you are looking at progress as a black or white thing, and not what it’s supposed to be. Progress. Any step towards it no matter how small is important. 

Motivation is not something you should ever rely on to get something done. It’s a very irregular feeling and if you wait for motivation before you do something, you will end up only working a very small percentage of the time without any consistency.

Despite those motivational bursts making you work for hours on end when they come, practising 5 hours for one day a week is a lot more ineffective than practising every day for 30 minutes. You learn by actively thinking while practising, repetition and sleep, so consistency is the key.

Dedication is a better tool to use, to push you through on days where you are not feeling it, and use motivation as a booster for extra practice on days you feel it. For this, it’s helpful to set practice routines and the minimum daily amount of exercise. Say you set your minimum amount of training per day to be 30 minutes, so every single day without fault at a predefined specific time you will practise for 30 minutes, no less ever. And in those blessed days where you are feeling motivated you can practise for as long as you want, whether it's only 15 minutes more or 3 hours more. More is fine, but less is not acceptable.

Conclusion

Improving in competitive esports requires more than just playing; it demands deliberate effort, discipline, and a well-thought-out plan. By evaluating your strengths and weaknesses honestly, setting clear goals, and establishing structured practice routines, you build the foundation for sustainable growth. Consistency is the true driver of progress—not fleeting bursts of motivation.

Remember, even the best players in the world rely on daily, focused practice and honest self-reflection to stay ahead. Whether you’re grinding out small improvements or making major breakthroughs, the key is to keep moving forward. 

Celebrate each step of progress, no matter how small, and trust the process. The habits you build today will shape the competitor you become tomorrow.

Good luck, and happy practicing!