Unlimited Memory How To Use Advanced Learning Strategies To Learn Faster Remember

Memory is the corner stone of our existence. It determines the quality of our decisions and, therefore, our entire life.

Our memory is just a habit, and habits can be improved with the right kind of training and practice. I discovered that there are basic fundamentals to memory improvement and that if we apply them consistently, we will get the same results that great memory masters do.

Concentrate

“The best advice I ever came across on the subject of concentration is: Wherever you are, be there.” ~ Jim Rohn

Every excuse you accept makes you weaker. Excuses stop you from concentrating and paying attention. When you excuse yourself from learning something new, you block your focus and your energy. Always remember that where your attention goes, your energy flows.

Never believe a lie

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it – as long as you believe 100 percent.”

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

There was once a fish that lived in a pond. One day, he met another fish that used to live in the sea. The pond fish asked, “What is the sea?” and the sea fish said, “It is a vast amount of water that is a million, million times bigger than your pond.” The pond fish never talked to the sea fish again because he thought the sea fish was a liar.

A belief is a sense of being certain and what you believe, you become.

I WAS BORN WITH EXCEPTIONAL CONCENTRATION AND MEMORY

“Do not tolerate for a minute the idea that you are prohibited from any achievement by the absence of in-born talent or ability. This is a lie of the grandest order, an excuse of the saddest kind.” You don’t need anything more. You don’t need a special talent or pill to have brilliant concentration or a great memory. All you need is a willingness to learn, a method, and self-discipline.

MEMORY IMPROVEMENT IS IMPORTANT

Successful people believe that what they do is important and worth doing. With this belief, people move from interest into commitment. Consider living without your memory for one week. You wouldn’t be capable of doing anything. Everything you do, say, and understand is due to memory. It is your most important mental function and if you improve it, you will improve your life.

I HAVE INCREDIBLE ABILITIES. MY MEMORY IS UNLIMITED

THERE IS NO FAILURE, ONLY FEEDBACK

Catch your memory doing things right. One of the best ways to strengthen this belief is to ask yourself, “How does my memory serve me – how did it serve me today?” Generally, people only focus on where their memory went wrong; therefore, making it weaker. Focus on your strengths and change your approach when the feedback or result is not what you want.

1. I DON’T KNOW IT ALL

Listen and become interested in other points of view and embrace change as well as new things. Allow information to come to you. Open all channels to receive information. Decide now that you will only feed your mind with good. Adopt and try on as many empowering beliefs as you can. Use them and watch your life take on a new direction.

“If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”

Training your concentration isn’t that hard. You just have to learn to become more peaceful and find the moment. You have to learn to be here now. When you are at work, be at work. When you are at home, be at home. “Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb,

1. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR INNER VOICE

Your inner voice has the ability to offer instructions so instruct yourself well. It is the center of your focus of control that helps you explain and make sense of your world. Don’t agree with the wrong voices; all self-hatred and conflict is just a thought or a little voice… so change the thought. It is not set in stone. Remember: if you give yourself bad commands, then bad things will happen.

1. STOP MULTITASKING

Neuroscience consultant Marilee Springer says, “Multitasking is known to slow people down by 50% and add 50% more mistakes.” Multitasking is like putting your brain on drugs. There is a whole body of research that shows that multitasking is less productive, makes you less creative, and contributes to you making bad decisions.

1. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT (PIC)

Purpose: Have a clear purpose because clarity dissolves resistance. Always remember why you are reading or learning the information. Keep your purpose at the forefront of your mind. If you don’t know what you want, how are you going to know when you get it? Learning with a purpose increases your attention, comprehension, retention, and organizes your thoughts.

Interest: Your level of interest sets the direction of your attention and, therefore, your level of focus. If you are not interested, remembering what you read will be almost impossible. Whatever is highest on your interest list is where your mind is alert, disciplined, and focused. Whatever is lower on your interest list is where you hesitate and procrastinate.

Your mind never wanders away; it only moves towards more interesting things

all ‘boring’ information can be made more interesting with the right mindset. Gilbert Chesterton said, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.” So get interested!

Curiosity: Questions are the answer to improving curiosity. Before you start reading or learning, ask yourself motivational questions. Most people ask  questions that don’t move them to take action.

Tony Robbins says, “If you want to cure boredom, be curious. If you’re curious, nothing is a chore; it’s automatic – you want to study. Cultivate curiosity, and life becomes an unending study of joy.”

1. ELIMINATE WORRY

Byron Katie says, “I could only find three kinds of business in the world - mine, yours, and God's. Whose business are you in?” You become more relaxed when you decide to take up residence in your own mind and your own business. Life is easy when you simplify and make peace with your train of thought.

Learn to practice peace because if you have no attention you have no retention.

Ask “What would I do” than “What if”

When you train your creativity, you automatically train your memory. When you train your memory, you automatically train your creative thinking skills!” ~ Tony Buzan

Bring information to life

“Your mind is the greatest home entertainment centre ever created.” ~ Mark Victor Hansen

Learn to use your imagination; it is a learned skill and not a natural talent.

THE SEE PRINCIPLE

Use your S – Senses: there are only five ways to get anything into your brain, and that is through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. When you utilize your senses you experience more of life and you remember more. Our senses help us mentally recreate our world. If you train your senses you will be using more of your brain, and if you learn to engage as many of your senses as you can then you will automatically improve your memory.

E – Exaggeration

Exaggerate with Humor; tickle your mind. There is no scientific evidence to prove that learning should be serious. Make your images illogical. Have fun; create some positive exaggerated learning memories.

E – Energize

Make your information vivid, colorful, and not boring, flat and black and white. Use action; it brings life to your memories.

The process of imagination is a fun creative process. The more enjoyment you can put into it the better.

Some people say, “This is not the way that I naturally think.” This is not the way that I naturally think either; this is how I have taught myself to think, because it works. The more skilled you become in using your imagination the more you can know, comprehend, and create. In this way, you become the director of your own mind.

Imagine you had to remember the name Washington; you could turn that word into a picture of you washing a tin. Or, if you had to remember the word Hydrogen you could see a picture of a fire Hydrant drinking gin.

The greatest secret of a powerful memory is to bring information to life with your endless imagination. Take responsibility for your memory. You can only learn to control your memory when you become the source of your imagination. Memory is not a thing that happens to you; you create your memories. You can make any information into something more meaningful. When we start using the memory systems you will see how easy it is to convert abstract information into meaningful concepts. Using all these memory methods improves your creativity, enhances your memory and your humor too.

The car method

Let me explain each of the pictures; the Seven Habits are as follows:

Habit 1: Be Pro-active – I thought of a Bee that is a pro-golfer. That picture should be enough to trigger habit 1. Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind – The brain is running a race, and looking at the end in mind.

Habit 3: Put First Things First – the man is in 1st position, putting first things first. Habit 4: Think Win/Win – the two trophies show that everyone wins with win/win. Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood – The man under the umbrella will stand up. Habit 6: Synergize – sign balancing on the edge with eyes. Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw – on the tire of the car.

Learning is connecting new information to old information, it doesn’t happen any other way. It is creating a relationship between the known and the unknown – and the more you know, the easier it is to connect more information and get to know more.

USE YOUR BODY TO REMEMBER“The music of your life is far better played with all the fingers of your Multiple Intelligences performing their magic on the keyboard of your existence.” ~ Tony Buzan

PEGGING INFORMATION DOWN“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Ten Emotions of Power are:

1. Love and warmth 2. Appreciation and gratitude 3. Curiosity 4. Excitement and passion 5. Determination 6. Flexibility 7. Confidence 8. Cheerfulness 9. Vitality 10. Contribution

Remember to make the images illogical. SEE the information in your mind for a few seconds. Take your time and make the associations strong; you can also draw an image to help you experience the information more. One bun, imagine a heart (symbol for love) shaped warm bun, or imagine that thousands of warm hearts are flying out of a bun. Really visualize it and you will remember that one is love and warmth. Two shoe, imagine that a preacher is grating a shoe with a cheese grater. I used a preacher to remind you of appreciation and a grater for gratitude. Three tree, imagine a cat in the tree, don’t make it logical. Maybe, imagine that the branches look like cats, cats are hanging off the branches or cats are growing out of the tree. Curiosity killed the cat. So, three is curiosity. Four door, imagine an excited person bashing down your door. Or, the door is so excited it jumps up and down and opens and closes. You squeeze passion fruit on the excited door. Four is excitement and passion. Five hive, imagine determined bees or determined terminators trying to break open a bee hive. Bees are a determined nation. Determination is five. Six sticks, imagine hitting a flexible person, that is doing the splits, with a stick. Or, really feel how flexible the stick can be. Six is Flexibility. Seven heaven, imagine heaven is full of confident people. See them walking tall with confidence that they are in paradise. Seven is Confidence. Eight gate, see a smiley faced shaped gate. You cheerfully open the cheerful gate. Eight is cheerfulness. Nine vine, see vitamins growing on a vine. As you eat these vitamin grapes you feel your sense of vitality improve.

Ten hen, imagine a hen giving you presents. She is a contributing hen. Ten is contribution.

IN THE FIRST PLACE“Whatever you think about, that’s what you remember. Memory is the residue of thought.” ~ Daniel T. Willingham

Here are the keys: 1. Attitude 2. Priorities 3. Health 4. Family 5. Thinking 6. Commitment 7. Finances 8. Faith 9. Relationships 10. Generosity 11. Values 12. Growth.

We start in the kitchen. The first word is Attitude. Imagine someone with a really bad attitude jumping into your washing machine. Clean up his attitude in the machine. SEE it! At the next place imagine writing all of your Priorities on the fridge door. Use a permanent marker and think about how your priorities are permanently stored on the fridge door. Imagine a healthy bodybuilder making an apple pie and shoving it into the stove. The apples are also a reminder for Health. So what was in the washing machine? On the fridge? At the stove? Now we move to the TV room. The first place there is the chairs. Imagine your whole Family is jumping up and down on the chairs. The more illogical the image, the more it will stick. The second place is the TV. Imagine a thought bubble coming out of the TV, because it is a Thinking machine. It also influences our thinking. The final place in the room is the exercise bike, so imagine combing (reminds you of commitment) the exercise bike. It is also a Commitment to use the bike.

In my bedroom the first place is the mirror and here imagine money flying out of the mirror. Your Finances are a mirror of your productivity. Whatever represents faith for you, place it inside the cupboard. Put Faith on every shelf or hanger. The next word we want to place on our memory journey is Relationships, and that is on the bed. Okay, you can make your own picture here. The final room is the bathroom. See a genie jumping out of the bath and he gives you what you wish. The genie giving reminds us of Generosity. Imagine the shower is made out of gold. Or, you open the taps and gold runs out of it. Gold has great value, and represents Values. At the last place we imagine a tree growing out of the toilet for Growth.

LINKING THOUGHTS“No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.” ~ Louis L’Amour

1. Washing a tin - Washington 2. Adams apple - Adams 3. A chef and her son - sounds like Jefferson 4. Medicine - sounds like Madison 5. Marilyn Monroe - Monroe 6. Adams apple Adams 7. Michael Jackson - Jackson 8. A van with beer in - Van Buren 9. A hairy sun - Harrison 10. A tiler (a person who lays tiles) - Tyler 11. Polka dots - Polk 12. Tailor - Taylor

“Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” ~ Dale Carnegie

1. CONCENTRATE

Listen and get genuinely interested in the other person’s name. We are normally so worried about being interesting, that we forget to be interested. When you become interested you will want to listen to the name. Learn to listen to people from their perspective and not your own. Not only will it improve your name memory, but your social intelligence too.

1. CREATE

When you put a name into your mind and you don’t do anything with it, it will disappear and you won’t be able to find it again. This is because working memory doesn’t store information. So to store it you need assistance from your short and long-term memory. You have to really think about the name to remember it because we only remember what we think about.

1. CONNECT

Remember that all learning is creating a relationship between the known and the unknown. You will already know the face so you need to connect the unknown name to the known face.

FACE CONNECTION

With this method you make a link between the name and an outstanding feature on the person’s face. Every person’s face is unique and every face has an outstanding feature

MEETING LOCATION CONNECTION When we meet people for the first time we tend to also remember the place that we first met them. The place makes a clear impression in our memory, but the name is nowhere to be found! With this method we connect the name to the place where we meet the person. We are using a journey peg to hold on to the name. Let’s say we meet a woman by the name of Rose. Ask yourself, “What will I remember about this place where I meet her?” Let’s say you think you will remember the buffet table, you then connect a big red rose to it and when you think of the place you will think of her name.

REMEMBERING NUMBERS“Group a list of letters together and you have a word that represents something – an image, an emotion, a person. Throw a few numbers together and you have, well, you have another number.” ~ Dominic O’Brien

If I make the word TOMATOES, what will the number be? T: 1, O: no value, M: 3, A: no value, T: 1, O: no value, E: no value and S: 0. The number would be 1310. What word could you make for 321? 3: M, 2: N and 1: D or T. We have the letters MNT or MND. If we add the vowel ‘i’ we have the word Mint, or if we add a ‘d’ at the end and the vowel ‘e’ we have Mend. Or, try the vowel ‘a’ and add a ‘y’, then you can make the name

ART IN MEMORY“Interest level is measured by how much you remember.”

The link starts with a picture of an old factory (sounds like Olfactory). The second picture is a tic to remind you of Optic. The third picture is a motor with ice blocks on it; it is an icy cool motor (sounds like Oculomotor). The fourth picture is a truck, with clear written on it, which represents Trochlear. The three gems are a reminder for Trigeminal. Two cents for Abducens. A lady having a facial is for Facial. Vest for Vestibulocochlear – you can always add more to the picture if the vest doesn’t trigger the whole word. The lip gloss is for Glossopharyngeal. Elvis represents Las Vegas, so the word is Vagus. The earring is an Accessory and finally the hippo is for Hypoglossal.

Mind Mapping (Registered trademark by Tony Buzan)“Your memory system operates so quickly and effortlessly that you seldom notice it working.” ~ Daniel T. Willingham

Step 1:

Make a central image Step 2: Once you have your central image, then you connect branches to the central image and start branching out the headings. The main branches are all the memory systems we have covered. Step 3: Once we have our main branches, then we can connect second and third level branches to give more detail to each main branch.

USING THE METHODS“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is a natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.” ~ Jim Rohn

1. REMEMBERING WRITTEN INFORMATION WORD-FOR-WORD“Memory ...is the diary that we all carry about with us.” ~ Oscar Wilde

SUCCESS

The first element of this memory method is to find the key words that will help you remember the rest of the text. Have a look at the key words that I have picked out:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. Once you have found your keywords, the next step is to create images out of them and place it on one of the systems that you have learned in this book. Remember it is like your imagination is the pen and the system is the paper. You can use a journey, your body, a car or anything that is already in your long-term memory. You can even link all the concepts together like you did with the presidents. Let me get you started; let’s use a tree to remember the key concepts. Why a tree? Because it represents growth for me, and it is in your Long-term memory.

1. PRESENTING FROM MEMORY“The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working as soon as you are born and doesn’t stop until you get up to deliver a speech.” ~ George Jessel

Great presenters know that audiences tend to remember the first and last bits of the presentation. Therefore they make their introduction and conclusion powerful and outstanding. They make their introductions more outstanding by opening with a memorable demonstration, question, fact, quote or a meaningful story. They also continually link information to the audience, making it more outstanding and keep repeating the main points. You can design your presentation with this FLOOR principle in mind. In a presentation we tend to remember: F – First things L – Last things O – Outstanding information O – Own links R – Repeated information

1. ABSENT MINDS “Is the object lost or are you lost?” ~ Anonymous

Have you ever wondered if you had taken your vitamins or other medication? And don’t you just hate it when you put your car keys down and when you need them you can’t find them? If any of this has ever happened to you, then you are normal. Yes, normal! This all happens because familiarity breeds forgetfulness. All of our routines sometimes create a state of ‘autopilot’ and we often don’t attend to what we are doing. The good news is that 95% of the time you are not absent minded. You remember where you put your car keys, you could find your car again, and you didn’t put your pants in the fridge. Yet we ‘beat’ ourselves up for the mistakes we make 5% of the time. If you keep your focus on your absent minded moments you are going to create more absent mindedness.

Start to catch your memory doing things right and you will start to see improvements.

1. REMEMBERING PLAYING CARDS

The card system works in the same way as with numbers. Only this time, the first letter of each suite will start the name of each card e.g. the 3 of diamonds will be D for diamonds and 3 = M, add a vowel and you have DaM. All the Diamond cards will start with a D; all the hearts will start with H etc. And then you just add the converted number to the end of the card. Here are all the images for all the suites: Diamonds A – Date (Ace is 1) 2 – Dan 3 – Dam 4 – Door 5 – Deal 6 – Dish 7 – Duck 8 – Dove 9 – Deep 10 – Dice (10 will be zero, s sound) J – Diamond (Jacks will always be the image of the suite) K – Ding (With Kings we use a word with ‘ing’ in it) Q – Dean (With Queens we use a rhyming word) Heart A – Hat 2 – Hen 3 – Ham 4 – Hair 5 – Hail 6 – Hash (hash brown) 7 – Hack 8 – Hoof 9 – Hoop 10 – House J – Heart (Jacks will always be the image of the suite) K – Hinge (With Kings we use a word with ‘ing’ in it) Q – Your queen of hearts (E.g. Princes Diana) Spades A – Sit 2 – Sun 3 – Sam (Uncle Sam) 4 – Sir 5 – Seal 6 – Sash 7 – Sack 8 – Safe 9 – Soap 10 – Seas J – Spade (Jacks will always be the image of the suite) K – Sing (With Kings we use a word with ‘ing’ in it) Q – Steam (With Queens we use a rhyming word) Clubs A – Cat 2 – Can 3 – Camo (camouflage) 4 – Car 5 – Coal 6 – Cash 7 – Cake 8 – Cafe 9 – Cap 10 – Case J – Club (Jacks will always be the image of the suite) K – King (With Kings we use a word with ‘ing’ in it) Q – Cream (With Queens we use a rhyming word) Let’s practice: imagine a King bashing down the Door and entering your House. He finds some Ham and Duck to eat in your fridge. With that silly story you remembered five cards – King of Clubs, 4 of Diamonds, 10 of Hearts, 3 of Hearts and 7 of Diamonds

To remember the whole shuffled pack you then create a journey of 52 places and you store each character on the journey, or you can link the cards together. These methods are not tricks; you are just using the memory fundamentals and therefore maximizing more of your memory potential. This is memory gym, the more you work with it the more your overall memory will improve. It is a way to practise your memory skills. I know many people are not going to put in the effort to remember cards, but at least now you know how. This is just another example of how these methods can be applied to solve any memory problem.

1. STUDYING ANYTHING “Learning new information isn't helpful unless it can be recalled later. Anything that increases one's memory power increases access to everything learned.” ~ Richard Restak, M.D.

There is no learning without memory. The more you can enhance your memory the better you will be able to learn. In every course there is some theory that needs to be remembered. The quicker you can get the theory down the more time you can spend on practising the information.

There are a few things you should consider to enhance your performance in your area of study. First, never learn just to pass an exam. What is the purpose of doing well in an exam and not knowing what you have learned two weeks later? Learning is not a destination, it is a continuous process

Before you study anything make sure you have a strong PIC (Purpose, Interest and Curiosity) in mind.

Your vision will determine how much energy you will have for your learning and how hard you will be willing to work. When studying it is also important to take breaks, as our mind can remain focused for only so long before we become unproductive and tense. When you return from a break you will feel refreshed and do more work in less time. Every 35 to 40 minutes take a break, take a walk and get away from whatever you’re working on and give your mind a rest.

PART 3. CONTINUOUS USE “Habits begin as offhanded remarks, ideas and images. And then, layer upon layer, through practice, they grow from cobwebs into cables that shackle or strengthen our lives.” ~ Denis Waitley

“We all love to win but how many people love to train?” ~ Mark Spitz (7 Gold medals in the 1972 Olympics)

Self-discipline is not self-deprivation. It is about raising your standards and going for and being more.

CREATE A VISION Your inner vision and your energy are connected. If you wake up in the morning and focus on all the bad things that could possibly happen in a day, your energy level will be low. If you wake up and imagine all the exciting possibilities, and focus on all the great things that you get to do, your energy level lifts. Where your attention goes, your energy flows. David Campbell said, “Discipline is remembering what you want.” The more reasons you have to do something the better your inner movie will be, and therefore the more energy you will create to do it. If your excuses are high and your reasons are low, you will have no discipline to start. If your reasons are high and your excuses are low, you will have lots of motives, and motives in action creates motivation. Always ask yourself, “How badly do I want it?” If you really, really want it, you will create a strong vision and you will have the self-discipline to do it.

MAKE A DECISION All change happens only when you make a true decision to change. When you make a true decision you will not allow for any other possibility. Make a commitment to yourself that this is the way that you are going to live your life. For anything to happen in your life you have to schedule it. Decide to make it part of your routine.

STOP LISTENING TO YOUR FEELINGS Elbert Hubbard said, “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

DAILY ACTION If you want to develop a habit then the only way to achieve this is by doing something daily. You have to review your new skill to renew it. Only by consistently practising your discipline can you turn it into a skill. Most of the research that I have read says it takes twenty-one days to develop a new habit. In my experience it takes a lot longer. Some people think that once the twenty-one days are up the brain will then take over. Then after twenty-one days they give up, waiting for their brain to do the rest. Self-discipline requires you to make a decision daily. Self-discipline requires you to start fresh every day. Every day is a new day. You don’t have to practise this skill for the rest of your life. Just for today

The only way you get good at anything is through self-discipline; remember life only rewards action!

REVIEW TO RENEW “You know as well as I do that it is entirely wrong to assume that any subject matter which we once learned and mastered will remain our mental property forever.” ~ Bruno Furst

Review after 1 hour then 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, 28 days, 2 months, 3 months and then it should be in your memory forever. During the first 72-hour period the knowledge transfers into a deeper stronger memory. So if you are using a route or journey system, after the first 72-hours you will be able to reuse the journey for new information. However, if you have information that you want to keep forever, rather assign it its own route or system and review it often.