Aim higher! But how do you improve?

As you can probably notice, I have a very low rating. I have only been playing chess for less than a year. Despite this fact, I have won the chess tournament at school. I play chess daily (Anonymously,) to improve but it doesn't seem like I do. (A question for high rated players,) How do you become better and better at chess? How can I become a 2000 rated player?

Join the chess club and play tournaments, solve tactics and read some chess books, in short.

Thank you hatchet. I appreciate your kindness.

For me, I just read through game collections and opening and ending books, and then just played a large amount of OTB tournaments, analyzing the slower games. Being comfortable with almost anything that comes from my openings was pretty crucial for me, and playing many games was the only real way to get that. Also, don't worry about the not improving, you've not even been playing for a year, it will come soon.

Definitely join a chess club and play OTB games. Learn from experienced players, even if it's just picking up little concepts that stick with you. The importance of getting rooks on the seventh rank was only fully understood for me when I was shown it in person by a player who's now only a little better than me.

Also, even if it doesn't seem like you're improving, as long as you're playing lots of games, you probably are. Just play lots of games, and however you learn, make sure you also learn from your own mistakes. That's why it's good to get a piece of free software, even an old Fritz or something, and see which moves the computer recommends and where you went wrong. Obviously a computer won't tell you why, but it will help a little.

I'm not that good either but I'd suggest playing games with longer time controls maybe? I saw your profile and it seems like you play a lot of blitz.

Maybe play 30 or 45 minute games ? I prefer to play one long 60 minute game rather than play 10 five or six minute games .

This is pretty funny! It's exactly 2 years ago that i began playing chess online (after seeing ChessNetwork's Anton^2-video). Once I started to play online i quickly made the goal to become a 2000 just like you.
After a year I entered a club and won their B-section (average rating was around 1550 fide) with a score of 7.5/8.
I can only tell you about my own experience: I had a reaaaaaally long time in the 1000 range (Blitz) on chess.com where it felt like I accomplished next to nothing! This stagnation stopped a year ago.
My advise: don't worry, I think it's pretty normal to be a bit static/under-rated in the beginning because the games one plays is still a bit "random" due to blunders. As #5 said you're properly accumulating knowledge even though it doesn't seem like it.
Good luck :)

Step 1: Abandon all time controls without an increment and less than 15 minutes. Get rid of that damn addiction! You can never improve if you keep playing blitz and bullet.

Step 2: Study tactics constantly. Seriously. Don't even look into positional aspects such as pawn structure, weaknesses, piece play and space, yet. At your level, consider the knight slightly stronger than the bishop. From my experience class players find the knight much trickier than the bishop and can fall easily into forks, and other stuff.

Step 3:- Stick to one broad opening as white (either 1.e4 or 1.d4). Learn the first 5 moves of each popular variation after your opening move. After that, increase it to the first 10 moves, and so on. For black, learn a good response to 1.e4 and 1.d4, and do the same exercise. If white plays any other move, use your response to d4 against it. It should work out perfectly fine. Just make sure all your pieces are developed by move 15, your king is safe and you have a good command over the center!

Step 4:- Calculation. Increase visualization capabilities. Stop saying, "My knight can move there and attack his rook which his next to his queen". Use algebraic notation even in your head. It's a great way to aid your ability to see the board in your head. When playing online, use arrows if they're available on the site.
Learn to pick out candidate moves and start considering all the possibilities your opponent might have!

BOOM. You are now a 2000 player, or at least quite close to it. Trust me, till 2000, you are still learning the basics. The real learning comes after the 2000 level. ;)

#8 I don't know about saying knight is better than bishop for under 2000 players, maybe under 1500 or so that's reasonable, but beyond that, highly questionable. Also, more or less ignoring positional ideas for tactical ones is a terrible idea. I got to 2000 quickly because of having a clue in positional chess. It gives you an upper hand against the opponents, and even, in my experience, made drawing far higher rated players easier on my way up. Perhaps I was the exception, and generally what I did was not so smart, but nobody had a firm grasp of positional play until around 1900 level, which made it very easy. In terms of studying positional play and tactics, I suggest getting a grasp on basic tactics, and then working on positional play.

Hey! Personally I haven't read any books or studied openings. I just have been playing for like 3-4 years, I think that is the key, practice. I also watch some instructional videos on YouTube, or play some tactics once in a while, nothing more. Hope it can help you :D

Although this is my case, surely there are better and faster ways to improve :P