Losing Motivation

I got back into chess about a year ago and I started to improve fairly quickly. I was very excited to learn more and improve at this game- and I made a goal to become a National Master. Since then, I've realized how much it takes to do that and I've adjusted my goal to about 1600 USCF, or a B Class player. With that rating I figured it would be easy to beat most people and I would be satisfied. Is this goal even too much? I think I can do it since I'm only 14 (turning 15 in a little over a month), but another problem came up, and I'm guessing you already know, going off of the title. I'm losing motivation.

I had to take some time off of the game due to school. I was still laying correspondence, but I didn't play as many games as I wanted to. I came back to playing live chess and have lost the last few games I've played. I wanted to stay at at least 1200 in rapid chess after reaching it but now I'm below 1150. Could this be just a slump? Am I just rusty? Probably, but It's still discouraging going from over 1250 to under 1150. I have some books on tactical and positional play, but haven't had much time to read them with school (no snow days so far, ugh). Even when I've had time to read them, I've just put it off until I didn't have anymore. I know I haven't been putting in time, but I'm struggling to do something about it. Playing chess is fun, but studying it has just lost its luster.

So I need advice. I want to get better, but I'm not as motivated as I used to be. I'm not really asking how to get better (because god knows how many people have done that for me), but you can add that in if you feel so inclined. I don't really care. I'm asking how to motivate myself into doing it. Study habits? More tactics? I'm not really sure. Thank you for reading, and please take the time to consider my question.

Whether I coached high school chess, track, cross-country, or softball, I asked players to set three goals for themselves: one for it everything went right, one if things progressed as realistically hoped, and one if everything went wrong.

That way they could make mental adjustments for disappointments as well as maintain a fire to improve if things went easy.

Hoping to get to USCF OTB Regular 1600 quickly when your ratings here are in the 1100's (usually about 900 USCF but it could be higher - you don't mention your OTB games if any) and you are missing about half the tactics problems (you should also check out the free ones at chesstempo.com) is something that is probably not reasonable even for the top goal I listed.

Players are said to achieve a solid level of understanding when they reach USCG 1200 (or 1400 here), and I agree with that based on the dozens of tournament teens I've coached.

I would suggest you aim for 1200 USCF or 1400 here FIRST before thinking about 1600: it's easier to hang on to your motivation if you allow yourself some small victories along the way!  But, just as Tom Brady doesn't drop back to pass and say to himself, "I'd like to throw 50 TD passes this year," you have to concentrate on where you are and what you must do NOW.

How can you expect to recognize chess tactics during a game - those you or your opponent might play if you don't recognize them in half that tactics problems you tried?  You need to improve through doing tactics problems, studying books like Heisman's Back to Basics: Tactics or Seirawans Winning Chess Tactics, and looking at videos on tactics and patterns here or on YouTube.  Dedicate, if practical. an hour or more per day - don't sacrifice you school work to do it!

Listen!? If chess is fun for you as you say then first you should compromise with what you play right now. The problem is not that you lost motivation to study or play, the problem is that you can't compromise with your self playing badly for your standards. There are two ways. You find a way to save time for training your brain muscles by studying chess more than you actually play or you accept your level of performance and don't care much.

One good way to find motivation is to search for your self a entairtening training program. A routine around chess with different exercises and studies refreshing your interest. Before you get better in chess you need to find how to become better! The journey is your motivation not the destination.

Chess.com is a nice tool to help you in this.

This is weird. If you want to do something you do it, if you do not want to do something you do not.

Why do you want to play chess? Because you enjoy it, or because you want to crush everyone and get social respect?
You have to evaluate your life. 

Now, when it comes to chess motivation, there is nothing better than getting crushed. At least that works with me, if someone crushes me he can be sure I will not leave planet earth without crushing him back.

It sounds like you're burnt out. I've gotten burnt out myself. And I think correspondance is a contributor to that. I love rapid OTB chess and have to settle for other forms I don't enjoy as much. So it's just not as fun. I'd say just take a break and come back when you're ready. Forcing yourself to play when you don't want to isn't really a recipe for success when it's just a hobby.

Thank you all for the advice, especially MickinMD! As for the tactics, lately I've just been rushing through problems whenever I have a spare minute. That may be a contributing factor to my quality of play. I've just reset my rating and will start taking them seriously again.

ChePlaSsYer- I did make it seem like I was just playing chess to crush everyone. While I do enjoy the game, I also have a love for winning. That might be a factor as to why I'm getting discouraged. I like the idea of winning and that 1600 rating, but I just wasn't motivated. I think TRextastic has it right- I think I'm just burnt out. I played a lot of correspondence during the break- 2 tournaments with 10+ games at a time. I timed out on a lot of them as I could barely bring myself to play most of them. I saw it as almost a burden. I'm probably going to stop correspondence for a long time, except for 1-2 games with family that I can't play OTB with. Thank you guys again for the advice!

Getting USCF 1600 is pretty easy and straightforward tbh (in theory). It might be hard for you because you have too many bad habits though, which is why a lot of people fail to reach 1600.

You should forget everything you know about chess, except for the rules. Try to forget every judgment you make about positions, except ones where it's obvious one side is winning due to massive material difference. Basically, your attitude, initially, should be "I don't know anything about chess". If more adults did this, they'd be improving much faster. 

Then just buy "Back to Basics: Tactics" by Heisman, do exactly what he says without question or doubt (And read all the chapters, every single word, no matter how easy you think it is), and also buy "A guide to chess improvement" by heisman and also do exactly what it says, and you'll probably be 1600 in around a year, maybe a bit more, but no more than 2 years.

And yeah, actually I had to "quit" chess 3 times, many months for each time, due to school.

Right when I came back I started missing a lot of tactics in my games, and it seemed like I truly got worse, but after a few weeks I was right back where I left off in playing strength.

If you are looking for inspirational chess player and games, GM John Nunn. He earns PhD in Math and was top 10 player in his prime. His books are good and many of his games are classic.

Try other games like checkers, pokemon, scrabble and others. After getting bored playing less beautiful games, you will be back to chess with more enthusiasm.