CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The Philosophy
My Areas of Expertise
Your Whole Body
Summary
How to Use the Book
Why You Need To Put These Ideas Into Action Straight Away (And Keep At It!)

AFFIRMATIONS

• Self Talk
• Negative Chatter
• Exercise in Reversing Negative Chatter
• Now how do you feel about it?

Exercise: Putting Your Affirmations on Paper
Exercise with a Tape Recorder
Do It Now

INTRODUCTION
In today's competitive learning environment it is essential you developspeedy and effective ways of accessing and retaining information. People who have these new skills enjoy their studies, gain higher grades and have higher self esteem.

The ideas are simple and effective. You will find that study can be easy and fun. Its benefits are available to you even if you did poorly at school.

Students realise that learning is a lifelong process. So how can you make it as simple and effective as possible?

The methods I give:

* are fun
* are simple
* save you time
* work for everyone
* can be easily incorporated into your study routine

If you keep doing what you've always done you'll keep getting what you've always got. So be ready for some changes in the way you view yourself and your abilities. But you must be prepared to do some things a little differently! To help you make the changes that really matter in your life I will be challenging you to take the first small steps. In each chapter you will be given challenges but you really need to treat these as commands. Why? Because most of what we read, novels and so on, encourage us to be passive rather than active. We have to break this pattern and move out of our comfort zone.

Stepping out of our old ways of doing things is a bit like spring cleaning or, as I discovered, like renovating houses! In our early married life my husband and I were short of money and so we renovated a couple of houses. I usually ended up doing the painting. I was painting away happily one day humming to myself when an old friend of ours called in to see how we were doing. He stood at the bottom of the ladder and gazed around. I could tell from the expression on his face that there was something he wanted to say.

"All right, " I said putting down my paint brush. "Out with it. What am I doing wrong?"

He laughed. "Am I that obvious? Well..." He hesitated. "I know you're new to this, but the paint job will last a lot longer if you clean away the

old peeling paint, cobwebs and dirt before starting."

The same applies to study. If you prepare your mind and body by clearing away the old ideas which you have about how you learn, the chances are the new you will learn faster, retain more and be far more successful.

So this book is about preparing your mind and body for study.

Most of the ideas I'm presenting have been around for a long while. I didn't invent them, but I have been using them successfully with nearly four thousand students over six years. Oh, and I've used them in my own life to start a business, raise a family, complete a Master's degree and to help juggle the competing demands of modern life. So I think I can confidently tell you: "They work!"

This book will springboard you into action. I've included references so you can follow up the ideas that have the most appeal to you.

'Well Roz,' you might ask, 'if these ideas have been around for so long, why aren't more people using them?' The answer is simple: the incredible amount of information to be learnt by both teachers and students has been so demanding that there has been little time left for the process of learning to learn. It's not the fault of the teachers - I know: I taught in our school system for a number of years, and I realised that teachers in our education system are doing a great job with the limited resources and training that the government is able to provide. So here you are - the simple, effective secrets of Learn Really well are right here in this book.

My Areas of Expertise

This book is not the be all and end all of study. Rather it is a collection of ideas which I have found to work. Since I intend you to use the book as a spring board, I am not going into any area in depth. Otherwise this "book" would be more like an encyclopaedia! I encourage you to take from the book as much as you can, then read further or seek out the professionals in the area. For example: the foods we eat have a bearing on our mental ability, and Rosemary Stanton has written excellent books to give this area more depth and authority. Anthony Robbins delves into goals, personal power, motivation and self fulfilment. Svantesson will draw you further into the intricacies of mind mapping and memory. You will all follow your own particular interests, and be attracted to the information you need most. You'll be amazed how once these ideas are raised, your awareness of them will mean that you'll come across more information about them. And do, please, be critical. Question what I write about. You might for example feel the information about zinc is too good to be true, so ask your doctor or naturopath. Learning is a lifelong journey.

Your Whole Body

There are many ideas in this book which will work for you. Some will work for you from the moment you apply them in your life. But to get the best results you really need to take a holistic approach. When your mind, body and spirit are in harmony, your growth and development will surprise you. When people join the army, for example, not only are they taught how to use weapons, they learn how good soldiers:

* walk
* talk
* eat
* breathe
* think
* exercise
* look
* sit

Summary

The following sections will show you 26 Learn Really well ideas. They are in alphabetical order to help you remember them.

a - affirmations what are you saying to yourself?
b - beliefs what you believe becomes your reality
c - colour colour has power
d - delight have fun studying
e - eyes strengthen and coordinate
f - food foods affect mental ability
g - goals what you aim for is what you get
h - holistic study see, hear, be
i - integration putting it all together, balance
j - justification check out the successes
k - kinesiology switch on your brain
l - listen 2 ears and 1 mouth - use in that ratio
m - mind maps whole brain thinking
n - NLP senses and study
o - oxygen feed the brain oxygen
p - posture move like a winner
q - questions ask the right questions
r - reading faster reading with better understanding
s - shorthand new efficiencies in making notes
t - time management time is your most precious resource
u - uppers brain boosters
v - visualisations believing is seeing
w - water brain juice, drink of champions
x - excitement get passionate
y - you you in balance
z - zinc zinc to think

How to Use the Book

Most of us are too busy to read a book from beginning to end unless perhaps it's a novel. I suggest that you start at the summary on the previous page and choose those topics which seem to be of the most interest or value to you. This probably means that they contain information which you consciously or unconsciously know that you need to deal with right now. Later, you can choose other topics in the same way. So this is an 'as you need it', 'pick it up' and 'put it down' type of book.

Highlight anything which strikes you as being of particular value. In fact, get yourself a collection of highlighters and use them liberally with the book. Use stars. Use coloured dots. Use anything, in fact, which will draw your attention to specific points. I have purposefully left spaces so the book is easier to read AND so that you can put in your own marks and comments. This is your book. You have invested the money, so make it work for you.

Once you understand these ideas it is essential that you put them into action within 24 hours. Otherwise, they just become good ideas that you soon forget.

I hear and I forget

I see and I remember

I do and I understand.

Chinese Proverb

Why You Need To Put These Ideas Into Action Straight Away
(And Keep At It!)

Only 10% of you will read past the first chapter and 90% of the information you read in this book will be lost from your memory within 72 hours. Unless...

* you make a commitment within 48 hours to recognise the ideas that are meaningful to you.

* you then implement the ideas within 72 hours.

There are 3 levels to memory. The key for you is to take information to the third level.

1 Sensory Register

This is the first level where your senses register information. You can only hold information at this level for a short period of time. For example, have you ever gone to a concert and seen thousands of faces? Could you remember them all now? No, because your sensory register rejected all that information very quickly.

2 Short Term Memory

At this level information is held momentarily. You use short term memory when you look up a phone number. If we don't transfer the information to our long term memory, the information is lost. So we can hold information at this level for maybe a few minutes.

3 Long Term Memory

At this level information is stored for long periods of time. How old are you? is a question requiring your long term memory. It is important how we put information into our long term memory so that we can get it back when we need it. This book will show you how you can firmly lock information into place in your long term memory.

Can you understand now why it is important to do the exercises and implement the ideas? If you really want to put this information into your brain for your long term use and benefit, then the information must go through these 3 levels. Reading by itself will at best take you only to level 2.

So the Do It Now sections at the end of each chapter are vital.

"Things do not change: we change"

-Henry David Thoreau

Do It Now

Your first task is to get some coloured textas, highlighters or

pens to use in the book. And stars and dots too, if you want.

Go on get them now or at least put them on your shopping list.

The next idea might be the very one you want to highlight.

The Do It Now tasks are simple and if you use them, they are going to make the difference between doing what you've always done or beginning to build your Learn Really well skills.

AFFIRMATIONS

An affirmation is something we say, think or feel about ourselves which we believe to be true.

Self Talk

What you say to yourself determines how well you will perform. Your 'self talk' is one of the most important factors in your success or failure at any task. I saw examples of this repeatedly when I taught speed reading.

At the beginning of each course, I had to assess students and find their baseline reading ability so that we could measure their progress. 'I want you to do a reading test', I would announce. The reactions followed a predictable pattern. Some would groan. Some would smile and sit up eagerly, keen to start. Some would look apprehensive. Then I always followed up by asking them to think about their instinctive reactions - to listen to themselves. How would you react? What do you think the good reader would say? What did the poor readers say? And were they right?

Some of the typical self talk from good readers was: 'that's OK', 'this will be fun', 'let's go' and from the poor readers came self talk like 'Oh no, I'm going to fail', 'I feel sick', 'this is going to be terrible'. How do you think this self talk would prepare - or affirm - each of the students as competent readers?

We seldom take the time to consciously listen to ourselves, yet we are constantly chattering to ourselves. This chatter programs us for success or failure. You can edit and control this self talk to turn it into positive affirmations. As my mother used to say 'you have the choice to see the doughnut or the hole in the middle, you choose to notice if the glass is half full or half empty'. Optimism is a learned habit and is essential for success (Seligman,1990). Back

Now how do you feel about it?

If you were able to let go of the negative emotions and concentrate on the learnings then you're probably feeling pretty good.

The process we have just been using is called reframing. Reframing your memories into empowering learning experiences will help you reshape your life and achieve your potential. Many of us are carrying frightening or deeply disturbing memories. If you are in this situation don't try and deal with this by yourself. Seek professional help. Time Line and Cognitive therapists use techniques similar to what we've just been using. They have the training and resources to help you deal with the more serious problems, if you feel you're ready to.

There are no mistakes in life, only feedback.

Negative Chatter

Do you have any negative chatter or affirmations about your ability to learn well?

Many 'slow' learners have had a lot dumped on them.

'You'll never be any good at maths'.

'Great at sport - terrible in reading'.

'It doesn't matter. You can't have both beauty and brains'.

Stephanie Burns calls these Great Lies We Live By and has devoted a book to that title. Can you remember being told these lies as a child? Such lies are still with you, affecting your self image. It's time to change these bad memories into something positive. If you have any bad memories then change them! 'But,' I hear you asking, 'how can I change memories of things that have already happened?'

Once, I would have asked the same question. Then I had an experience which brought home to me the extent to which we can shape the world to suit ourselves. After my parents died my brother and sisters and I got together to relive and remember the past. I was amazed that we each believed and remembered such totally different interpretations of the same events. And yet for each of us our memories were very real. The point is that we chose to remember those things that fitted in with our view of the world and our affirmations.

If you have negative affirmations it is possible for you to change or reframe them into something more positive. Everything that happens to us is a learning experience. We can choose to remember the learning and this will empower us. Or we can choose to remember the negative emotion and this will limit us.

Exercise in Reversing Negative Chatter

In this exercise, the aim is to relive an event as it was, but keeping in mind the whole time the positive learning outcomes that could flow from it.

1 Choose a minor event that happened in the last year or so that left you with a negative emotion.

2 Now go back in your mind to15 minutes before the event.

3 Imagine that you could have learnt something positive from the event. What would that be? Perhaps if you had an argument with someone you might realise that anger doesn't help. So think of something positive that you could have learnt even though this might be difficult for you to do. Right - got it now?

4 Now run the 'video' of the event in your mind, but see it as reinforcing that positive thought for you. The idea is not to rewrite history, but create a new interpretation of it

Exercise: Putting Your Affirmations on Paper

'I am a hopeless reader' is an example of a negative affirmation that could leave you feeling bad, frustrated and dumb. The positive affirmation from this could be 'My reading is getting better every day' and then your response would be confidence.

Now it's your turn

Write one of your negative affirmations?

___________________________________________________________

What is your response to this?

___________________________________________________________

Write a positive affirmation to replace it.

___________________________________________________________

Now how do you feel?

___________________________________________________________

Exercise with a Tape Recorder

Make a list of the positive affirmations that will empower you and record them. To fill up one side of the cassette you will need to go over the list a number of times. Let the tape play as you go to sleep so that you effortlessly reprogram your brain with more empowering self talk.

There are tapes available of general affirmations which you could use if you find it difficult to make your own. But as soon as possible you should make your own, because the affirmations you choose will be the ones you particularly need. What's more, if the affirmations are in your own voice your subconscious will tend to believe them all the more readily.

Whatever you say to yourself today, you will be tomorrow.

Do It Now

1 Go to the mirror

2 Look yourself straight in the eye

3 Say aloud one of your new affirmations 5 times

(Don't read on until you do it - I'm watching you!)