Developing A Key Mental Muscle

Do you know there is no such thing as a bad memory? There is not. There's only weak memories and strong memories. Anyone can develop a great memory. I can teach you to memorize a book. There are people that have memorized many books of the bible. In fact, I know one woman who used to be a public-school teacher who ended up being a minister later in life by the name of Marilyn Hickey, who memorized at least 23 books and some of the psalms. I have seen some teach people how to memorize. They are considered memory experts. And as an educator, I love this sort of thing. I found several experts, but one I noticed was a guy from San Francisco known as one of the world's outstanding memory experts. This man taught memory development to industry and the professions. And has been known all the world over for the development of his own memory. The book he wrote on this was called, "Remember the Word" and is based upon educational and psychological principles of Association.

God designed our minds with amazing capabilities.

Most of us have a good memory but do not practice it efficiently. And really the average person has difficulty remembering directions.

Why?

Because this area has not been strengthened.

I love to help organizations and groups learn how to learn and remember people’s names. I got to be very good at it. You would have loved seeing me recall over 1000 names of my African American students in the inner city by the end of the first month of school, especially being a Caucasian from Kentucky. And now I am a Florida girl working globally so I have connections with every nationality. When someone realizes you know their name, it opens the door for genuine connection and that is what is important. In fact, I have done workshops and master classes on this. It is amazing. There is a way to remember names, numbers and little techniques you can use. Anyway, there are so many ways to develop memory. You just need to invest time and effort into it.

We have the capacity to have an excellent memory, and what we have learned is developed largely through Association.

Here is a key question.

What can we relate or connect a new idea to that we already know or understand?

Every Piece of information in our memory is connected to other pieces in one way or another. Let me use a good example I use when training educators to develop memory techniques with students.

What if you are given the word "Apple"?

What words do you associate with "Apple"?

Most people hear "Apple" and think red, round, teacher, tree, fruit, or sweet. It's unlikely that you would associate the word "Apple" and think of a "car" unless you happen to own a car previously that was the color candy apple red or some other experience that would explain a rationale for associating a car with the word apple.

What if you were asked to name the 8th letter of the alphabet? You would not likely know that the letter H equals 8, but you could easily begin saying the alphabet in your mind, ABCDEFGH, and then say, "H." You used Association to get the letter H, because you knew a was the first letter, then kept choosing the next letter in sequence until you got to the 8th letter.

When realizing your vision or working to see it fulfilled, it will be vitally important to develop capacity in this area, and this is easy to do. All you need to do is to develop the skill set of creating an Association with 2 bits of information. Let me give you a few examples.

Let's say traditionally; you have been weak remembering dates and times. It is February, and you and your colleagues have a scheduled Visioneering Seminar on May 4th I am presenting at the Tampa Club. Carey Limousines of Tampa Bay is going to pick you and your colleagues up at 4 PM sharp to take you to dinner and then the seminar. This is three months away, but you get questions on the fly from colleagues in meetings, and you need to demonstrate you are on top of it. Everyone depends on you to get this right.

How do you use the Association to strengthen your memory in this area?

For the vehicle, you need to provide for your team May 4th at 4 PM, imagine the Carey Limousine black Cadillac SUV in your mind and notice it has four wheels. Four wheels, May 4th and 4 PM. There is an association. The event is several months away and will be removed from your short-term memory, but you will be more likely to remember this detail because you took time to exercise your memory using Association.

Here is another one.

You traditionally have trouble remembering names when you meet someone new. You decide to put effort into improving this area.

Associate the name with a mental picture.

Let's do a simple one. Mike Hill. You notice his hairstyle is spiked, so you associate through memorization like "Mike with a spike." You say to yourself, "Mike, with a spike, Hill lives on a hill." You will likely always remember Mike Hill.

Now here's some more teacher stuff.

When information is not related in any way, we must be more creative in linking things together. Most of us have learned rhymes and acronyms in school to help us remember things. Here are some of my favorites:

• I before E except after C, or when sounded like A as in neighbor and way (rule for remembering how to write EI or IE correctly.)
• ROY G. BIV (colors of the rainbow)
• Every Good Boy Does Fine (notes of the musical scale)

Why do they work?

Because they form an easy to remember Association between 2 pieces of information, sometimes you can invent a rhyme or a poem when wanting to remember something, or it can even be a picture in your mind or something silly as in "Spike Mike."

Now you have an awareness of how to develop your memory through Association. You will need this skill as you begin to develop capacity and the perseverance to overcome obstacles that get in the way of you realizing and fulfilling your God-ordained vision.