Trouble remembering names: here’s a simple strategy that works

If you have trouble remembering names, don’t blame your memory. Use this simple technique and never have trouble remembering names again!

How often is it that someone introduces themselves to you … tells you their name, then you look at them straight afterwards and you can’t remember it? How can that be a problem with your memory if it’s just happened? It can’t. Something else must be going on. This video explains what that is and helps you to work out how to remember names quickly.

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Summary & key points of this video

If you want to learn how to remember names, you’ll firstly need to accept that it’s nothing to do with your memory.

In fact, the reason that you have trouble remembering names is that you get distracted when you first hear the name. Why? Because you’re more interested in what the person looks like than what they say. You do what human nature tells you to do; you suss out the person’s physical appearance. You’re thinking about how they look at the same time as they’re telling you their name.

So, the key to remembering names is to have the self-discipline to process the name while you’re also thinking about the person’s physical appearance. That’s quite hard unless you’re consciously trying to do it. You need to make it a habit so that you do it automatically.

So how do you do this? How do you remember names?

Once you’ve taken in the name, you repeat it back out loud. For example, when you first meet someone and they tell you their name – immediately say something like “it’s good to meet you xxxxx.” This is the first step in the process of getting it in your head.

Then, every time you look at the person who’s just introduced themselves to you, you repeat the name silently to yourself. You do this every time you look at the person until you’ve got it – until the name comes naturally.

Imagine you’re the only person in a group of people who have just met for the first time. You are the only one who remembers the names of the others and, what’s more, you use them. What perception will people have of you? They’re much more likely to perceive you as a confident person.

In summary:

1. Get in the habit of processing the name when you hear it. Don’t get distracted.
2. Repeat the name out loud to the person after you hear it.
3. Every time you look at the person say their name to yourself until it comes naturally to you without any effort.