Memorise anything … with the Major System!
The Major System is one of the more advanced memory techniques, enabling you to memorise anything, if you take the time to learn it. Just by taking the time and trouble to learn this memory system, you will actually be learning to improve concentration and focus, and you will be building up a database of words and mental images that you can link to memorise anything you like.
As I’ve already noted, you don’t have to use the words I use, or the images I’ve put on this page. These are here simply to help you learn this memory system, but you have to do what works for you. If you can think of a better or more fitting word or image for a particular number, then use that one. Use whatever memory tricks work for you, always.
Remember, if you learn the Major System you’ll be well equipped to memorise anything, so it’s worth the effort involved. And here’s the next 25 memory images:
Use the Major System any way that works for you
Once you learn the words and images that represent the numbers in the Major Memory System, you can use it any way you like. Obviously, you can use it to memorise anything … for example, lists of all kinds, and if you are a student no doubt this will be of prime importance to you. You can use it to memorise U.S. Presidents, state capitals, Olympic Games venues, Oscar winning movies, and plenty more.
Memorise anything … from a list of British monarchs to the periodic table
If, for example, the 49th item on the list you’re memorizing is the chemical potassium, then try to link potassium in some way to ‘rope’. Since potassium is a soft, white metal and reacts wildly with water, you could imagine a huge, soft chunk of it attached to a rope and suspended just over the surface of a pool of splashing water. Every time it touches the water it reacts and swings and jerks the rope side to side. As it begins to settle down, a splash of water touches it and off it goes again, flashing and sparking. You will have linked 49 to potassium! And in the same way you can memorise anything you put your mind to, using the Major System.
Maintain a positive attitude and you can memorise anything!
Really see the action, and focus on each part of the image (i.e., the potassium, its colour and consistency, the water, the rope, and the action). Spend a few seconds seeing the action, as though it’s physically there in front of you, and giving it time to impress itself on your mind, and then have the feeling that it is there, and it will stay there.
Don’t do it! Instead, take a positive stance; start to see yourself as having a good, reliable memory, and think thoughts like, “I’ll remember that for good, the mental image is clear and permanent … this is easy for me!”
To memorise anything, you have to believe you can!
Even if you think you’re kidding yourself with such positive thoughts, your mind will accept them, sooner or later, and will accept that you can indeed memorise anything. It simply has no choice. And the more often you repeat those thoughts in your mind, the more you will consciously believe them to be true. Once you accept them as true, your subconscious will do all it can to reflect that positive belief – it will bring about the situation you want. In short, it will see to it that you do have a better memory (of course, the truth is, you do have a really powerful memory anyway, we all do … it’s just that we generally have a very poor view of it, and we’re way too quick to dismiss it as being hopelessly inadequate).
Memory techniques like the Major System can be amazingly effective and can allow you to memorise anything. Still, you might come across some opposition to what you’re doing – some people may, in fact, see what you’re doing as just memory tricks, but really the only trick involved is getting your memory to work to its full potential.
It’s not just for lists!
Anyway, maybe you’re not a student. Maybe you just want to memorise phone numbers, or memorise directions, or memorise names of a group of people you’ve just met. There could be any number of things you might want to memorise. Whatever it is you need to do, the Major System is there for you – it can literally help you memorise anything.
Once you’ve learned the Major System, you can apply it to virtually anything you can think of. Suddenly, you have a hundred clearly defined memory pegs on which to hang things … any things at all. And all the memory pegs are conveniently and methodically numbered, so that when you ‘hang’ something on one of those memory pegs, you know exactly where it is. Because you’ve taken the time to really learn the memory system, and automatically learned to improve concentration along the way, those things you’ve committed to memory will be there, exactly where you left them, right on their numbered memory pegs! And if it’s important stuff, you just have to review them a few times to impress them more firmly on your long term memory.
To learn more about the Major System, take a look at these other pages: learn the Major System peg words (these will help you to master this amazing system), and learn how to use the Major System as a Mental Notebook. And be sure to check out the other pages that detail all the other memory images.
All the links you need are also in the sidebar >>