Do you also have a bad memory for names? In that case, these 5 techniques will come in handy to help you get rid of your forgetfulness once and for all.
Many of us are probably familiar with the unpleasant situation when we meet a familiar person, but cannot remember their name. Or, even worse, we meet someone and after 5 minutes have no idea how to address them. This can happen anywhere – at a friend’s party, at a business lunch, or in a new work team.
How can you learn to remember names? There are several proven methods for this.
According to an article in Psychology Today, the ability to remember names also deteriorates with age. It turns out that about 85% of middle-aged and older people forget names. However, this does not mean that forgetfulness of names only appears with age, because many young people also notice this deficiency in themselves.
Why do we forget names?
This phenomenon can be explained. When we meet someone for the first time, our attention is scattered by many factors – the person’s face, appearance, voice, manner of speaking, gestures and the surrounding environment. The overabundance of information and the defocusing of our attention often lead to the fact that we cannot remember the name of the person in front of us.
Remembering the name is important
If you want to get someone’s attention, the easiest way to do it is to call them by name. Research shows that saying our name activates our brain, even if we are in a noisy room. That is why many influential leaders attach great importance to names and try to use them as much as possible. The effect of this is easy to verify: I believe everyone likes to know that they are remembered when they hear their name. Conversely, forgetfulness in others causes negative emotions.
How to remember names
If you’re like so many other people and constantly forget names, Christy Hedges , professional coach, speaker, and author of The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others, offers some tried-and-true tips to help you overcome this shortcoming once and for all.
Met – repeat
When you hear someone’s name, don’t just nod and move on, but repeat the name, incorporating it into your conversation or asking your new acquaintance something. For example, if your new acquaintance’s name is Mark, you might say, “Hi Mark, nice to meet you,” or ask him a question: “How long have you been working in IT, Mark?”
Use the name throughout the conversation, but don’t overdo it or repeat it too often. Also include the name in your farewell phrase and look at the person’s face as you say it to help cement the image and name together in your memory.
Write it down
Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist and memory expert, suggests asking people to write down their name, especially if it’s unusual or rare. This technique is effective if you have a strong visual memory. You can also ask the person for a business card and read their name off it while you’re talking to them. This will create a connection between the person and the visualization of their name in your memory.
And immediately after the meeting, write down the person’s name and basic information about him in your contacts. This way you will save everything that is most important and will easily remember the interlocutor if necessary. You can write down both personal information and the features of his appearance or the topic of the last conversation.
Use associations
Many experts advise that when you hear a new name, you should create a verbal connection or a picture for association in your imagination. This can be any fact that you know about the person – their hobbies, field of activity, place of residence, etc.
Vivian Zhang gives an example of this advice, which she learned from a Dale Carnegie course:
Visualize images that sound like the person’s name and match them with other facts you know about them. If you meet someone from Brazil named Laura, picture her wearing a laurel wreath on her head, floating in the Amazon River.
Create connections
Another way to remember names is to associate a person with another person with the same name, someone you know well. For example, a friend or relative. Christy Hedge learned this trick at a training session with 15 people. She was surprised when the trainer, after briefly greeting each participant, went around the group and addressed each of them by name without a single mistake. He then used a simple technique – he associated each person with a famous person (or someone he knew). For example, Ryan was associated with Ryan Gosling. This may seem difficult at first, but with practice you will learn to instantly create such connections between people and remember their names.
Show attention
Most psychologists and memory experts claim that one of the main reasons for forgetting names is that we do not focus on it and after a moment our attention is scattered to other things that surround us. The same advice is given first and foremost by one of the most sociable people on the planet, Keith Ferrazzi:
If you make a conscious decision to remember a name because you care about the people you meet, you’ll immediately start doing it much better.
