I've been on and off on chess for many years, but I'm nearly 1700 on Lichess now (AKA good enough to beat any casual player, but bad enough to get crushed by anyone who studied seriously at all). In my experience, the best way to get better at chess is to not play it. It's to study. Make sure you have good fundamentals: being able to spot hanging pieces, identifying weaknesses in your own and your opponent's structures, taking control of the center, developing efficiently, etc. If you stopped playing now, and just practiced tactic puzzles and watched some YouTube videos on opening theory and high level game analyses, you could be at 1000 rating in under a month.
Of course, actually playing is significantly more entertaining. One of my hobbies is speedcubing, and I've been stuck at the same skill level for probably upwards of 6 years, around a 15 second average. If I had spent all the time where I was grinding out solves and put it towards conscious improvement I could probably be under 10 seconds on average now. It's the same story with Rocket League, too. If I had spent more time doing conscious and intentional practice, I'd be much more highly rated than I am now.
Practice is hard, and it's just way more fun to play ;)