You must believe that you can have a good memory.

Events that happened on August 18:

1952 Monday - Actor Patrice Swaze born. He died on Monday September 14, 2009.
1961 Friday - Construction of the Berlin Wall was completed.
1962 Saturday - Peter, Paul, and Mary released their first song "If I Has A Hammer".
1966 Thursday - Cultural Revolution began in China.
1973 Saturday - Hank Aaron surpassed Stan Musial with highest number of extra base hits. He had
                           number 1378.
1981 Tuesday - Jerry Lewis appears as a guest on the Phil Donahue show to defend telethons.
1981 Tuesday - The mall in King of Prussia Pennsylvania opens it's "Kings Court" section.

     In my kindle book "Memory Quiz, What Type of Learner Are You?" there is a chapter on changing your beliefs about how good a memory you can have. If you are believing that you have senior moments, that you are all brawn and no brain, or that your memory is like a seive, you will continue to have problems and never improve your memory even if you try the techniques.
     When I used to teach memory courses, my students included people with brain injuries. Often, I would have to give those students pep talks so they would stay motivated to continue the class and not succumb to the belief that they will never have a good memory. As the 80's tune goes "Don't Stop Believing", you will accomplish your goal if you believe you can.
      Someone might be thinking "Yes but I have always had a bad memory, how can I believe I can do it if there is no evidence, and plenty of evidence that I can't". All great accomplishments were made by people who believed they could, despite a lack of evidence. You can too!

Basic ways to make associations of what you know and don't know

News happenings on August 16

1948 Monday - Babe Ruth dies.
1954 Monday - Sports Illustrated begins publishing
1958 Saturday - Madonna born
1962 Thursday - Ringo Starr replaces Pete Best as Beatle's drummer
1977 Tuesday - Elvis dies
1985 Friday - Madonna weds Sean Penn
1986 - Saturday - Madonnas "Papa don't Preach" is no. 1 hit
1988 - Tuesday - IBM introduces software for artificial intelligence

     There are tricks to memorizing trivia as well as important things for your job and school. If you look at this example there are three things about Madonna on August 16. Her birthday, her wedding, and her No. 1. hit. Some information just lends itself to easy memorization. To remember this all you would have to memorize are the years that the Madonna event occurred on August 16, and if you are like me, the day of the week.
      When I was in high school our sanitation engineer ( back then we called them janitors, oh that sounds so seventies) was Mr. Les Trash. Can you see how his name made for an easy association with his occupation? However, most things you need to memorize do not lend themselves so easily to association, so you need to create one.
       Since the olympics just ended here is an example of how I memorized what olympics were on which years. I would use pictures and souns to associate the city with the year.

1896 - Athens - Well that was easy because they were the first modern olympics.
1900 - Paris - I thought of a state senator and a baseball pitcher I knew who were born in that year and imagined them eating in a cafe in Paris. THey were Hugh Scott and Lefty Grove
1904 St. Louis - I knew that Bing Crosby was born in 1904 I imgined him singing "Meet Me in St. Louis"
1908 London - Lyndon Johnson ex president was born in 1908. I imagined him climbing Big Ben.
     I continued this through all the olympics through 1964 Tokyo. Beginning in 1968 I did not have to associate because I rember the games from watching them.
     In future bologs I will illustrate specific ways of making associations.