Visualization and memory
Do you ever struggle with remembering names? I’m not going to mention names (Jennifer Palais) but I often hear people say that they are bad at name recall. Sometimes the person leaves the building and then the information magically comes and sits on their shoulder. I’m hoping this isn’t going to ruin my life or theirs and yet for sure it is annoying, to me and to the forgotten.
Martha Beck, Oprah’s life coach for her show and website, says that “when you’re thinking about what you want (to remember), you imagine the situations in which you’ll need to remember it, you’re more likely to succeed. Preparing your mind for a certain behavior increases (by as much as 50 percent) the chance that you’ll pull that behavior off.” This technique seems more viable to me than an affirmation of “I remember names!” Something (or someone?!) inside me yells back, “No you don’t!”
We hear about Olympic athletes imagining or visualizing themselves pulling off the big event performance exactly as they want to. But can it work for the more prosaic activities we encounter in life? Something as simple as remembering names?
I’ve been working on this technique for a few weeks now and it is really making a difference – about 50% of the time! My success is increased when I repeat my new friend’s name in a sentence shortly after I hear it.
Remembering names feels a little more like poetry now.
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