You may be familiar with the oft quoted phrase:
“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
t has been attributed to Eisenhower, Patton, Kennedy, and as recently to Colin Powell. However, its origins go back all the way to 1871 and was first coined by the Prussian General and strategist Graf Helmuth von Moltke who wrote: “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.”
Therefore, if you transfer this principle to the survival situations we are talking about in our 101 series on preparations for emergencies there’s one thing you can count on, it’s the fact that survival situations are never going to unfold as you predict. You can have all of the gear you think is necessary, and plan ahead of time and still be forced to make a decision you aren’t expecting.
In fact, sometimes the pre-planning and purchases that you make can work against you because you are relying so heavily on their literal use instead of thinking in terms of how you can achieve a goal by using them in a way that they weren’t necessarily created for.
What often happens when things don’t go as planned is you begin to panic! Instead, you need to keep a level head and be able to improvise and adapt whenever possible. Being able to think quickly and make decisions is a vital skill us Survival Preppers need to master.
For example, you may have thought ahead of time to have a water filtration system for clean water – or a tent to protect you while bugging out, but if either of those are compromised, what would you do?
You always have to have a Plan B and a separate strategy to deal with any survival situation you may face. You need to be able to look at what you have on hand or what is around you so that you can find alternative methods to have protection from the elements or purify the water that you need to stay hydrated.
This kind of skill is important in many different areas of survival, whether it’s regarding your food and water, first aid measures, or even self-defense and security. By knowing how to adapt and improvise, you’ll be able to rise above any dire emergencies whenever your pre-planned methods and supplies fall short.
You’ve Got to Learn How to Improve Your Decision Making Skills for Survival
Before we start looking at how supplies can be used or how your planning may need to be altered, let’s talk about your decision-making skills. This is where you need to begin when you are wanting to master adaptation and improvisation for survival.
Making a decision when you are calm and comfortable in your own home is one thing period but when you are in a stressful survival condition, the decision-making process is altered and your senses are heightened so that you may not have the best ability to do what is logical, but rather what feels like a better option.
You want to train your mind to have the highest cognitive function possible whenever you are in survival emergencies. You don’t want to make a knee jerk decision or even be paralyzed in your decision making whenever it counts.
For many people, when they have trained for something and they have certain gear on hand for it, they have trouble seeing any alternative option in that very moment. You need to become disciplined with your decision making and rehearse certain scenarios so that when you are faced with something being compromised or not as expected, you are able to pivot and do what needs to be done with ease.
In the military, they use a system known as OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). This can help you with situational awareness so that you are mindful of your options and keeping your stress level low so that you can think clearly and rationally.
Just because we don’t want to immediately act based on our gut instinct, that doesn’t mean your gut instinct is wrong. You still want to take that into consideration, but also have the clarity needed with your brain to take the right action.
You Need to Have Versatile Uses for Survival Gear and Common Items
Now let’s look at different gear and common items that you may have on hand that you can begin looking at in different ways. Many people think they will need to purchase survival gear in particular and only use that in this type of event.
But oftentimes, common household items are going to come in handy in an emergency. For example, something as common as needing water is something that might make people panic initially.
You might be looking at the survival water storage options you purchased that are now damaged in some way (or stolen) and immediately assume you have no way to store water, when the truth is, you have many plastic bottles around your home that you can repurpose after cleaning.
Or maybe your first aid kit was damaged or lost, and you aren’t looking at simple clothing that you could turn into a bandage or to create a splint from if someone has a sprained ankle.
Many people purchase things like signaling gear in case they get lost, or solar ovens for cooking in survival situations. But if you don’t have those at your disposal, you can use tin foil for cooking over a fire, to signal for help or even to help with warmth.
Some of the survival gear that you purchase will already have multiple uses. Paracord is a good example of this. It can be used to help you build shelters to trap game, for fishing and more.
Duct tape, which you may already have around your home or may have purchased for survival purposes also has multiple uses. You can patch a hole in a tent, secure something in place, use it as a bandage if necessary, or even restrain someone if they have threatened or attacked you and you managed to subdue them.
Tools like a Swiss army knife or other multi tools can help you in many ways during any survival scenario. But you can also take scraps around your property or elsewhere and use them in innovative ways for survival.
If you were in a dire situation, you could break a side mirror off a car to signal for help, or cut out seat belts so that you have a strong rope to use for pulling something. You could even find some PVC pipe and close one end of it to have a container for your water if necessary.
Times When You May Need to Improvise or Adapt in a Survival Event
Don’t just think about how you can use things for other purposes – but when you might need to use an improvisation mindset. We mentioned water purification earlier. You might have to use sand and rocks or a piece of clothing to help filter out debris the best way possible.
If there is no small or large game, and you can’t find plants to forage for food, you might have to resort to eating insects – or fashion a spear to fish with if you don’t have any line.
When it comes to shelter, you might have left without a tent when you bugged out, so you’ll have to look around and find what can work as shelter-building materials. You might find trash (like cardboard that’s been discarded) or scrap material you can use for shelters, too.
Your first aid methods might require you to adapt, too. You might use feminine hygiene products to stop bleeding from a wound, for example. You may have to use sticks and paracord to put a splint together.
Even with self-defense and security measures, you may have to improvise. You may be caught in a situation where you don’t have any of your self defense gear. So you’ll need to use something else as a weapon to defend yourself and your family.
This might be a cast iron frying pan, a broom handle, or you could break the leg off of a chair, table or grab something else solid, sharp or heavy to defend yourself with. You can use empty cans that you string together and place strategically to create a makeshift alarm so you know if anyone has breached your property.
The thing about survival is, it requires a level head and adaptive responses to whatever is happening around you. Once you begin to play difficult scenarios in your mind that have you considering what you’d do without your specific survival gear or existing plans, it strengthens your ability to get through these situations.
Now that you know about adapting and improvising for survival it is time to move on to the next chapter in our Survival Prepper 101 series – Part 34: You Need to Create a Long-Term Survival Plan.
If you missed the last installment in our series you can read this report by clicking on this link: Part 32: Why You Need to Have a Bartering Plan in a Cash Compromised World.