A majority of us (as per studies), are convinced that we have a poor or average memory. The truth is something else. Your brain is capable of storing a quadrillion and more memory impulses. So there, you do have a wonderful memory. There is no such thing as a poor or bad memory. Whatever may be your age, you can always train your memory to retain and recall whatever you would like.
How to get started?
Years ago, before training my memory, I could recall only seven or eight digits, about the length of a phone number, which is the average human memory span for numbers. I did not just wake up one morning with the ability to remember. I simply studied the techniques for making my mind more supple and put them in to practice. So let us explore the couple of memory techniques along with some rules that ensure super memory performance:
Any memory trainer worth his/her mnemonic will vouch for the fact that the foundation of a trained memory is association. You learn and remember a thing that is new to you, only by associating it with something you already know. Think about it. You will able to recall many conscious associations you have made to remember some new piece of information. Now you have become aware of how association is crucial to memory training. Using your imagination and creativity, if you can link a new piece of information to something you already know in an illogical way and actually see that silly image in your mind’s eye, you can perform memory magic.
The aforementioned steps need to be applied to memorizing a list of errands, to-dos, short notes, speeches, sales talk, just about anything you wish to remember in a sequence. After all, speeches or long answers are ideas, concepts, and thoughts in a sequence. Read your speech or the notes once or the twice, mark the key words, because the key word that will bring the entire sentence or the thought concept to mind. Make a list of key words in proper sequence. If you’ve linked the key words, you are ready to deliver the speech. Think about the first item and say what you want about it. When you are through with it, the next key word will come to mind. Making a list of key words will cause each thought and so on, right through to the end of your sales talk, speech or article.
Try ‘feature link’ technique to help you remember and recall names. The first step is to hear the name clearly. If the name is meaningful and you can picture it in your mind, it helps. If possible, ask what the name means. People love talking about their names. If the name is meaning less and intangible, then simply think of the word that sounds close to it. For jabber, you can think of jazz and bear. The next step is to observe the person. One particular feature may strike you, a mole, dimple, scar, beautiful eyes, and a colorful turban.
Mnemonics is an ancient Greek technique for remembering numbers and dates. The method use words to make numbers more meaningful and thereby easy to memorize.
Know for sure that the more you practice the art of association, the more natural it will become. Once you become adept at creativity, imagining ridiculous associations, you will memorize with ease and efficiency just about any fact and figure.