Everybody we meet wants to be confident, for meeting any situation in life.

If you are waiting for the perfect conditions, ideas or plans to get started, you can sure that you can wait till eternity and still, you will never start. This is for the simpler reason that will never have ideal circumstances. The time to act is not only now, but you also need to work on yourself, for bettering yourself, all the time, irrespective of the fact, whether you are working for yourself or others. The most important thing, in building self confidence, is to grid up your loins and takes action. Working on something, and being on it, till it is done, is the greatest confidence builder. There is no short cut to action. Just sitting and mulling over anything, will not leads to its accomplishment. For getting anything done, we simply need to focus on it, to the exclusion of everything else. For succeeding in life, or in any other venture, we need confidence and the key to having confidence is the preparation. We have to face our fears. It is best to bear in mind, that everybody has some fear or the other in life. Let us bear in mind that neither being wrong nor failing, in any venture, would kill us. Each one of us has to face our own fears. We should review our own failures and deeply introspect, as to, what has led to same. Our effort should be, to learn from every such situation. Life is tough master as it gives experience first and lesson after wards. Ideally, we should learn from other peoples mistakes and failures. However, most people, like to make their own mistakes, before they correct their direction and path. To build up your confidence, you should know and utilize your own strengths. Confidence is built up on achievements. The more you succeed, the more confident, you would be. For succeeding, you have to be more productive. The worlds best and cheapest productivity tool is to say No to the things and people, who sap your confidence. Always be working towards your vision, goal and dream. The same is applicable for your occupation and calling, as well as your leisure pursuit and relaxation. One of the important inputs into the confidence building, is the way, the way, we walk, talk, the tone of our voice and how we interacts with others. It is not very important as to what we say to others, but how we say. These qualities show whether we are confident calm or casual. Our body language gives way, whether we are comfortable or we have anything to hide, or we are displeased with others and so do not want to talk to them. A simple or fidgeting or a sharp glance or a limp hand shake or hands in pockets, reveal more about us than most of us are inclined to believe. For showing our best and confident side, when talking to other persons, we should look in their eyes, but not stare awkwardly. We maintain our eye contact with others without being disrespectful. When talking to others, we should not stare at the ground or look side ways. We should radiate confidence, when we look at others. Our postures should be erect and not hunched back or stiff. A confident person is always cheerful and smiling. Smiling gives good feeling to the person, who smiles, as well as, to the person at whom the smile is directed. You do not have to grin all the time, but remember that a smile disarms even hostile

people. So, do not be afraid, to be liberal with it. A smile puts others at ease and makes a good impression on them. Frankly speaking, my own experience shows that a serious look put people off and immediately generates distance between the two sides. For developing your confidence, every move your make and every muscle you move, should be the result of a conscious decision and not caused by an instant whim. It is important to be always calm and relaxed. Cultivating clarity of mind and speech will enable you to make a good impression by your sensitivity and intelligence. Occasionally, all of us find ourselves into a situation where we feel out of place or unsure or ourselves. The first thing we must bear in mind that we are not alone in this type of predicament. In such circumstances, we should put a smile on our face and practice a positive attribute to discover as to how best we can tackle such a situation. In such state of affairs, not only you should tell yourself that you can handle such a situation but work on it as if it was impossible to fail. Use positive words about your competence and your ability, which reinforce your confidence rather than undetermined it. Whatever be your situation never twist or bow your head. Always hold it high and look the world in the face. We must always bear in mind that nothing builds our confidence more except the accomplishment of our goal. This is possible only by taking action. Facing fear is the only way to overcome it. Also study and then visualize as to how other confident person you know, would have handle any predicament or a crisis which you might be facing. You must treat yourself as your best friend and focus on the positive things about yourself. Compliment and praise yourself several times a day. Contributing to others with words and actions not only makes us feel good, but also enhances our self-esteem. Developing and maintaining a high self esteem, is pivotal to our self confidence and success in life. Whatever be the state of affairs, there is a silver lining even in the darkest of the clouds. Encourage and support yourself with positive self-talk whenever you face any problem or a stumbling block. We should be always be focusing on the good and positive and invariably except win situation in all conditions. All of us often waste a lot of our valuable time and energy worrying about what might happen, even if we have no control over the situation. Instead of wasting energy, we should focus on the things we can control. Apart from this, we should focus on the problems as they arise. It is wisely said that He who grieves, before is necessary, grieves more than is necessary.

How to improve your memory? Individuals differ in their abilities to memorize. Some have more impressionable mind than others. Therefore, the materials they learn get more easily and more effectively registered as a result of which they show better abilities for recall and recognition. Is it possible to improve one's memory? Yes, more specific aids to memory are available.

Some of the general principles that you have learned in this chapter can be applied to improve your memory. Psychologists have developed mnemonics, which means the art or system of memory strategies. By using the techniques described below, one can improve one's encoding, storage, and retrieval capacities. Mnemonics The word 'mnemonics' comes from the Greek word for memory and refers to specific memory improvement techniques. The 'mnemonics' consist of a set of strategies, which includes the use of visual imagery, method of loci, number and letter peg systems, chunking, and narratives. Most of the mnemonic techniques link the newly learnt materials with the organized set of images and concepts in the long-term memory. These firmly established LTM images serve as reminder cues for retrieval. These reminder cues are called pegs as though the to-be-remembered items are hung on these pegs. The pegs act as mediators for remembering something long and complex. The Method of Loci Its literal meaning is method of locations. The memory pegs in this system are parts of your images of a scene or places. It helps in remembering a number of terms serially. Suppose you want to remember the following five terms serially: house, man, tree, water, and book. You need to go through the following three stages: (a) Visualize a series of places with which you are very familiar (for example, visualize five rooms in your educational institution like principal's room, staff room, classroom, laboratory, and toilet in that sequence). (b) Create a visual image of each term you have to remember (for example, create the images of horse, man, tree, water, and book). (c) Associate the terms one by one with the places in your imagery (for example, associate horse with principal's room thinking that the room has a big photograph of a horse, then associate staff room with man, classroom with tree and so on). One can also use the same set of images for remembering an additional list of items. The method of loci has proven to be helpful in remembering separate terms in an order. Number and Letter Peg Systems Here the memory pegs are numbers or letters. The to-beremembered items are linked to the visual images formed with numbers. For example, you may create a rhyming system for the numbers 1 to 20. Think of words that rhyme with numbers such as 1 with man, 2 with shoe, 3 with tree, 4 with door, 5 with hive and so on. Now if you want to remember a list, associate each term serially with the images of the numbers. Suppose the first few items of the list are cake, door, chair, book, and pen. You may create associations as follows: man is eating the cake, shoe is in front of the door, chair is hanging from a tree, a door is created by arranging books, and the pen is hidden in the bee

hive. In each case, you associate the number image with the items to be memorized. Using letters as pegs follows a similar method. In this case, let each letter stand for a word that starts with that letter. The images of these words are linked to the items to be remembered. These methods not only help in remembering the th th st items serially, but also help in recalling the 9 , 16 or 21 item. Any numbered item can be retrieved from memory. It is shown that more bizarre the images of the items to be remembered, the easier it becomes to store and retrieve. Chunking Chunking refers to recoding information into a single meaningful unit. Suppose you want to remember a seven-digit phone number, 2350478, it will be helpful if you break the number into two chunks such as 2350, and 478. One chunk consists of four digits, and the other consists of three digits. In fact seven units of information are reduced to two longer units called chunks. By doing this you automatically increase your working memory capacity. You can further aid your memory, if you associate the numbers 2350 and 478 with some facts firmly established in your LTM. For example, in order to remember a phone number 610365, a person told me to divide the number into two chunks, 610 and 365. He further helped me to associate the numbers with some knowledge in the following way: We are busy from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, and for all the 365 days. I have never forgotten that phone number. Similarly you have to create your memory linkages. Chunking is a powerful and oft-used mnemonics to aid memory. First-Letter Technique If you need to remember a set of concept names, you can take the first letter of each concept, and combine them to form words, though not meaningfully. When children remember the seven colors of the rainbow in the form of' VIBGYOR', they use this technique. We remember the word through their abbreviations such as ICU for Intensive Care Unit, IEC for Information, Education, and Communication, and UNICEF for United Nations Children's Emergency Fund. In this method, the order of the words or concepts is important. Narratives In order to remember a list of unrelated words, you may create a story using these words. Suppose the items to-beremembered are tree, water, gate, sun, and forest. The madeup story might go as follows, "A crow on a tree needing water flew over the gate under the hot sun to the forest." While recalling the items, the story would help you to retrieve the items from the LTM. All the mnemonics discussed above provide useful techniques to improve one's memory. But as you know, memory is far more complex a process and these techniques have limited applications, when higher-order memory processes are involved. The contents of a college level course are far more complex. In fact, you cannot rely on a single and simple method for improving your memory for the course. Several other additional factors and considerations are important. Ability to memorize

depends on the internal characteristics of the learner, the characteristics of the items, and the methods of learning. First of all, the person must feel the need to improve his memory, and must be highly motivated to do so. He needs to have good physical and mental health. In order to be able to store the items and recall those later, he must use efficient coding devices, pace his rate of learning, use effective methods for learning the items, rehearse the learnt material for proper storage, take rest in between learning sessions, and from time to time engage in exercises of recall to assess the status of storage. If you are motivated to improve your memory, you may consult the teachers of psychology in your college.

the information reaching STM might have been knocked out, because the STM has a limited storage capacity. Thus, a person may forget because of encoding failure. What are the different factors that influence the encoding of the materials? The factors operating at the time of encoding are (i) strength of original learning, (ii) nature of material, (iii) method of learning, and (iv) speed of learning. Although amount of retention cannot increase indefinitely as a function of the degree of over learning, over learning is preferable than under-learning. Forgetting involves both verbal and nonverbal learning. Meaningful and rhythmic materials decrease the rate of forgetting because of their associative value. Motor learning is retained for a long period in comparison to verbal learning. Speed of learning is conversely related to the degree of forgetting. According to Underwood, "when learning is rapid, forgetting will be slow and when learning is slow forgetting will be rapid. Attitude towards learning material, motivation and interest to learn are also important determinants influencing the nature of encoding. Emotional shock such as failure in examination, suspension from job etc. seriously interferes with encoding and leads to forgetting. The rate of forgetting varies from individual to individual. It is found that some forget sooner than others. Some people easily learn and retain certain materials in comparison to others. So, whether forgetting will be slow or fast depends upon the individuals, the situation, and the nature of the information to be remembered. Storage Failure

Why do we forget things? Why do we forget? As you may know, memory has three interrelated components, i.e., encoding, storage, and retrieval. Forgetting may occur because of problems experienced at any one these stages. If the material is not properly encoded, the relevant aspects of what is to be remembered would not be stored. Even after efficient encoding, if the materials are not properly stored in the LTM, they cannot be retrieved at the time of need. Even if the storage is proper, the learnt material may not be retrieved because of some interference. Besides all these, some painful experiences may be repressed in the unconscious and not available to our consciousness. In other words, we forget some painful experiences, because we want to forget those. All these causes of forgetting are discussed below. Encoding Failure The process through which information is converted into a form that can be entered into memory is known as encoding. You know that the informational impact at the sensory register should be properly processed to be passed on to the STM, and then to LTM. Massive forgetting occurs at the level of encoding. Without deep level processing, materials may be lost at the level of encoding itself. Sometimes, we think that we have forgotten because what we remember does not match with what actually occurred. Constructive processes distort what is stored in memory and we remember the distortions. For instance, we remember the gist or meaning of what we have read or heard in a conversation but not the time the information was encoded for storage or we encode only selected portions of the to-beremembered information. Strictly speaking, such faulty remembering is not forgetting, in fact, we remember what was encoded, and stored. Much of what we think we have forgotten does not really qualify as being forgotten, because it was never encoded and stored in the first place. According to the information theory, some information might not have reached STM because of lack of attention. Due to inadequate encoding, the information may not have been transformed from STM to LTM. If the encoding is not proper,

Even if the encoding is proper, materials may be forgotten because of improper storage. As you know, materials have to be finally stored in the LTM to be retrieved at the time of need. Forgetting takes place because either the material is not properly stored in the LTM, or the storage is affected by interference or disuse. The LTM storage may face problems because of several factors. The oldest and simplest view of forgetting is that information entered into memory fades or decays with passage of time during which it is not used. Thus, forgetting is a function of the passage of time. This explanation assumes that learning leaves a trace in the brain, which is known as memory trace or engram. The memory trace involves some sort of physical changes not processes prior to learning. With the passage of time, the normal metabolic process of the brain cause a fading or decay of the memory traces so that traces material once learned gradually disintegrate and eventually disappear. As a result, the memory storage is greatly disturbed. This theory fits our commonsense understanding of forgetting and is consistent with our informal day - day experience. Often information we acquired quite sometime ago is more difficult remember than information learned only recently. Does it mean that the memory traces of earlier learning are

completely wiped out? Considerable evidence suggests that decay is probably not the key mechanism in forgetting if the material is re-learnt, it could be done quickly. The process is known saving. Furthermore, in many instances, learning (e.g., motor skills like cycling driving etc.) is retained for a long period of time with no intervening practice (Even in some cases, verbal materials may be retained over long periods time. For example, we may recall a poem learned in the XI standard and yet be unable to remember a part of a play we learned in XII standard. Why should the decay process affect the second material and not the first? Evidence, which goes against the trace-decay theory, rests on the recovery of memory supposedly lost. People approaching senility, who can barely remember the events of the day, often vividly recall events of their you Findings of the study by Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924) and Minami a Dallenbach (1964) argue against the suggestion that forgetting is primal the result of gradual decay of information over time. It appears that simple passage of time is a cause of forgetting both in the sensory register and short-term memory, but not in long-term memory. Memory traces seem too permanent once they make it into long-term memory. Forgetting does not seem to happen in long-term memory because of disuse overtime. Forgetting m simply is a matter of retrieval failure in that some other additional experience may interfere with the systems at the time of retrieval. Retrieval Failure The failure of retrieval provides the most important explanation forgetting. Even when the material is properly coded, and stored in the LTM for some reason, the material cannot be retrieved when needed, it is deemed to be forgotten. There are several factors influencing retrieval from the LTM them is the context of memorization. If our memory for persons and events has taken place in one context, and we are asked to recall it another ext some amount of retrieval failure may take place. Many of us fail to the names of our high school classmates, when we meet them later in the out of-school settings. This means that we have lost social-context- retrieval cues that we used while forming the initial memories of those classmates. Hence, the change of the memorization context leads to retrieval failure, and consequently, poor memory. It seems that many memory failures are to poor encoding and inadequate retrieval cues rather than loss of memories. Failure to call up memories cannot be taken as a positive proof that memory was not there. Another important source of influence for memory failure comes from interference. The theory of interference suggests that forgotten memory is either lost or damaged, but is only misplaced. The memories for other Materials interfere with the retrieval of the one that is sought. Our inability to remember the names of our high school friends is similar to what happens a clerk fails to locate a letter that he received a year ago. The letter is still somewhere in his file but it has been buried among a host of other letters buried the

clerk filed before and after this letter. The modern theorists accept interference a major cause of forgetting. The interference takes place in two different forms such as proactive interference, and retroactive interference. Proactive interference refers to a phenomenon, when old memories displace or block out new memories. On the other hand, when new memories knock out the old memories, the phenomenon is known as retroactive interference. A vast amount of experimental evidence as well as everyday experiences indicate the occurrence of both proactive and retroactive interferences. When you fail to recall the names of your high school classmates, because you had so many friends in colleges, you are experiencing the phenomenon of retroactive interference. On the other hand, if you had difficulty recalling the names of your college friends because of your memories for close friends in your high school, you are experiencing what is called proactive interference. Memory references are easily demonstrated in the experimental laboratory. Suppose you want to demonstrate experimentally the retroactive interference that affects retrieval memory. The prefix 'retro' means 'backward acting'. Retroactive interference occurs when a new learning works backward and interferes with the previously learnt material. In a typical experiment, there are two groups known as the control group and the experimental group. The control group learns some materials such as a list of nonsense syllables (List A), and is tested after a specified rest interval. The experimental group learn the same list (List A), and then learns a second list (List B) during the period when the control group takes rest. The learning of List B by the experiment; group is an interpolated activity. Then both the groups are asked to recall List A), which was previously learned.