Just what is “will power”? In emotional intelligence language, we would call it Intentionality.

Emotional intelligence means being able to understand and manage emotions – yours and others’ – and to use them to make decisions, solve problems, and bring about results that work in your favor.

We think with our neocortex, and our emotions are generated in our limbic and reptilian brains. Two of our brains don’t take orders. Our “brains” are often in conflict with other one; that’s way life is.

Intentionality is a high-level competency because it’s means saying what you mean and meaning what you say. It also means being accountable for your motives as well as your actions.

Do you have a list you have to remember quickly? Take first letters and form an acronym.

For example – you have to remember to send Fred, Lisa, Ethel and Andrew cards. Yes, their first initials form word FLEA. Imagine itching (your head?) because you have a flea – you know first letters of their names.

Going to supermarket? Bread, butter, ketchup, onions, tuna, olive oil– BBKOTO. Not too promising? Try rearranging them – you have TB BOOK. Think of a book going through last act of ‘Camille’ – dying of consumption. Silly? Yes. But remember – sillier better, it will force it to stay in your head. Now you have all letters.

If you don’t have enough letters to form a word – try to find one that comes close. PROMPT for PRMT, FAULT for FLT and so on. You already know items you’re have to remember, what you are trying to do is create a reminder – once your memory is jogged, words will come back.

When you are devising acronym, remember to picture items visually in your head, visualization is a strong memory technique.

Forming A Story

If you have a longer list of seemingly unrelated items, that automatically becomes a good candidate for a story.

For example:

-Glass -Horn -Cat -Onion -Melon

These words may be unrelated, but that is point – you can combine them easily with a story that will be outrageous enough it will stay in you head – change order if necessary – A cat is playing with a melon and all of a sudden it’s repelled by smell of an onion that was used to season melon. The cat got all excited and ran away – racing through a glass window and landing inside a big French horn.

It’s silly and childish – but that’s point, it’s silly enough to be remembered. Think story through and key words – cat – melon – onion – glass – horn – come to mind.