How can you become more efficient in disaster/emergency situations ?

In our previous blog post, we were able to tackle two of the biggest obstacles that survivalists face in times of trouble: disbelief and stress.

Overcoming these two primary obstacles will bring you closer to developing your ultimate weapon against adversity: the survivalist mindset.

Your progress as a survivalist does not stop with overcoming stress and disbelief. These are just the stepping stones to more difficult but no less vital tasks: planning and taking action.

Why is planning and taking action different in a survival situation?

Planning and implementing something sounds so simple when you read it in a book or magazine.

But when youre in a survival situation, everything changes and it can be extremely difficult to pull yourself together to perform these two tasks that can help you get out of the problem youre presently facing.

How can you muster enough mental fortitude to create a plan of action and use it to survive a disaster, injury or emergency?

1. Take Care of Yourself This might sound like commonsense, but people often ignore basic needs like keeping warm or staying hydrated when theyre in an emergency situation.

You have to give yourself as much physical comfort as you can because if theres just too much pain and misery wracking your body at every moment, your mind is going to recoil from any additional activity.

Why? Because its too busy processing pain signals from all over your body! In a dire and austere situation, every bit of comfort that you gain is a step toward a clear and responsive mind.

2. Use Your X-Ray Eyes Alright, we dont have x-ray eyes, but that caught your attention, didnt it? What I meant with x-ray eyes is to observe your surroundings repeatedly and very closely so you can spot things that you might be able to use to get out of the situation.

Avoid telling yourself that theres nothing there because our sense of sight and our perceptive capacities are very limited.

Before you can truly see everything that could possibly be seen in the limited space that you have access to, you have to look at your environment repeatedly and at different angles.

3. Create a Final Choice Individuals who are in survival situations often formulate only two clear choices because their minds are so stressed to come up with a third one.

Were going to break this trend.

Instead of formulating two options for yourself, I want you to create a third or fourth one. Let your problem-solving mind go wild. The results of your own creativity may surprise and even save you.

4. Succeed With a Million Tiny Steps There is an overwhelmingly common belief that in order to succeed at beating the odds, you have to create a major plan that, like Superman, will swoop down and save the day.

In an ideal world with no scarcity of resources, this wouldnt be too difficult to accomplish. However, we live in a far less ideal world. In times of disaster, circumstances become even more limited and difficult.

So if you limit yourself to a big idea that may be too difficult to put into action, you may actually be delaying the emergence of the actual solution. Sometimes, you have to take many, many small steps in order for a solid plan to materialize.

You need to keep moving away from your current dire situation so new options can present themselves.

Do not allow yourself to sink into despair because you cannot find an ideal solution to your problem. If you have a less than perfect plan, put it into action! Having a concrete plan is better than having an ideal plan thats currently impossible to implement.

Always remember that any success, no matter how small, can help you trek towards the final solution. Do not give up, because no one climbs a mountain with a giant step. Even the highest peaks of the world have been conquered by man, one step at a time.

How can you teach the same mindset to a group of people?

Assuming that you are a leader of a group and misfortune befalls it what do you do?

As a leader, you can condition every member to adapt the survival mindset so you can all collectively improve your chances of survival.

Make sure that every member of the group is taken care of and be assertive as you explain your possible options. During emergencies, your ability to become assertive and disciplined in all respects is highly valued.