People often comment that I’m good at remembering names.

I don’t know if I’d say that’s naturally the case.

I never used to be.

Until I went on a course (or seminar or similar, I forget) about 20 years ago.

I’m pretty sure it was when I was a PT at Fitness First Sheffield, which was 2003 to 2005.

The person at the front said something along the lines of “Have you ever had someone introduced to you at a party and, seconds later, you can’t remember their name?”

We all nodded.

“It’s because you’ve not actually made any real effort to remember their name. You just vaguely hoped it would stick”

Which struck home.

Because it was entirely true.

Ever since, I’ve made a concerted effort to remember people’s names.

When I first speak to them, I’ll repeat their name back in conversation a few times.

Repeat it in my head.

“Right Bob, the first thing we’ll do before you first Session is a quick assessment”

“So Bob, how many Sessions have you done so far?”

“Hey Bob, that’s a great deadlift – have you done much deadlifting before”

All the while in my head going “Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob”.

Along with a few extra techniques – knowing who’s booked in for each Session and checking it before hand for anyone I’m not 100% sure on.

It’s just effort.

But it’s become pretty easy now as I’ve done it for so long.

It just comes naturally.

Like most things we keep doing.

The question to ask with something we don’t find “comes naturally to us” is…………..

How long have you really spent trying?

Like, really trying?

In the last decade there’s been over 5 million minutes.

How many of those minutes have you spent in concerted effort to improve your ability to remember names?

If you hear about meditation and think “I tried that and it didn’t work” or “that’s not for me”……………

Then how many of those 5 million minutes did you actually spend in deliberate practice?

To put it in context, the average adult will have spend 1.5 million of those minutes ‘practicing’ looking at a screen of some sort.

The same question can be asked of self descriptions of “I’m not good at going to bed at a reasonable time”, “I’m not good at exercising” and many other things we might think about ourselves (although I will cover tomorrow that this actually isn’t really the point).

How much time have we genuinely spent in deliberate practice in the grand scheme of things?

I’m sure we all agree that we get better at stuff with practice.

Next time you catch yourself thinking you’re not as good at something as you might ideally like to be …………….

Ask yourself how many of the last 5 million minutes you’ve spent in deliberate practice on it.

And, maybe, decide to use a little more of the next 5 million on that? – check www.myrise.co.uk/apply if you’d like proven help on a programme designed to help you get better at stuff you struggle with as easily as possibly!

Much love,

Jon ‘The 5th of November’ Hall

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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.