LOVE, Kloudiia

The setting: Along the street.

The ambush: While you are walking along the street, a man walking opposite your direction suddenly calls out:

“(your name), Hey, it’s been a long time! How are you?”

“I’m good. How about you, [struggling to say his name]”

You are dumbfounded. You feel so embarassed and guilty that you actually forgot someone’s name who remembered yours!

This is just one of the could-be settings. There are numerous others, some which are totally unforgiveable like networking sessions. My memory is so bad at remembering names that I just couldn’t place people whom I’ve met more than once. Last night was the night I resolved to do something about this. Hey, I can continue on blaming my memory for this, or I can take 100% responsibility and admit it’s got to do with my lack of skills at remembering names instead.

So, it’s not because I can’t. I haven’t found the way to do it, yet. I need to find a strategy, and so I found at Google. I know I’m not alone in this, so I’m going to share the new found strategies to remember names at social settings so that we won’t be tongue-tied or dumbfounded anymore!

How To Remember Names 

43 Folders done a pretty good job at compiling from various sources. In addition to those, this is what you may like to know from How To Remember Names (hodu.com)

Delete “I can never remember names” from your thought system. If we insist on this limiting belief, it will fulfill itself. Instead, install a new belief, “I’m getting better at remembering names.” (That is true, now that you have some specific skills you can put to use.)

I like this! We are limited by our own limiting beliefs and screwing our minds. Simply install a more empowering belief will do some instant tricks.

I also like this from Real Simple (read and you’ll know why)

If someone has an unusual name and you have asked him to repeat it but are still not sure how to pronounce it, Martin suggests asking him to write it out phonetically for you, then saying, “What a beautiful name. I just want to be sure to get it right.”

That’s me! I mean, my name Kloudiia. Since we’re at this now, may I formally introduce my name as Kloudiia, spelt with two “i”s and pronounced as “Cloud-dear” that’s right. Thank you very much for taking the effort to remember

How about this from Mind and Memory Improvement: Strategies to help you remember names and faces easily

Connect a new person with a well-remembered individual of the same name.
Associate a new Mr. Coppenhagen with an old customer of the same name. When you see the new man, you would think of the old one, and the name would flash into your mind. You can even visualize the 2 Coppenhagens attached to each other like Siamese Twins, to trigger the thought that they have the same name.

Useful when you meet few people with the same names right?

Different strokes, different folks. If you are more visual like me, then it’ll be more useful to deploy images and to see their name on business cards. This helps me a lot.

In a nutshell, it also boils down to how well do we listen when someone introduces himself. If we just listen intently rather than thinking of what next to say in response, then our chances of remembering this person’s name could just be increased three-fold. Never be shy to ask them to repeat or spell their name out for you if you didn’t quite catch it. Sometimes due to their unique accent it may be hard to spell out, and when we can’t, it’s hard to emboss the name in our memory to recall it later.

Hope this helps. Meanwhile, I’ll test it out on my next opportunity when I meet someone new! Have fun!

[tags]Remember names,Networking,Friends,Relationships,Social[/tags]