People tend to get distracted from their goals by negative thoughts or worrying about what could go wrong. For example, if your goal is to clean your garage, you might say to yourself, "What's the point, it will just get messy again." Or, "I'll never get this done today. I'll do it when I have more time." These negative thoughts prevent you from seeing the true goal.

The next time you have an unpleasant task to complete, make a note of any negative thoughts that arise. Try to counter each negative thought with something positive. You could say, "It won't get messy again if I put in place an organization scheme that works." Or "Maybe I can't get this all done today, but I could get the left side of the garage finished today and then I could park my car inside." Picking an appropriate goal and keeping negative thoughts from distracting you will make it easer to stay motivated.

per-ti-na-cious

adj. :: Holding or adhering to any opinion, purpose, or design, with obstinacy; perversely persistent; obstinate

adj. :: Resolute; persevering; constant; steady.

"I could see that Montgomery had one of those slow, pertinacious tempers that will warm day after day to a white heat, and never again cool to forgiveness; and I saw too that this quarrel had been some time growing." -- Wells, H.G.

Memory is not a thing that you can measure. There is no single place in the brain where memories are stored or where remembering happens. You can't take an MRI of your brain, point to your memory, and say, "My, what a good memory I have!"

Memory is better thought of as a collection of behaviors that you use to organize information in your mind. So, when someone says that they have a "bad memory," what they are really saying is that they don't have a good process for storing and retrieving information. While there is some link between intelligence and memory ability, memory is mostly a learned skill and you can get better at it with practice.

Exercises designed to improve your memory are not trying to enlarge or strengthen any particular part of your brain. Instead, they are teaching you new behaviors and skills that can be used to organize information in your mind and improve your ability to recall this information rapidly and accurately.