When it comes to survival prepping, many people make the big mistake of simply learning the skills they need to survive and stocking up on supplies that may run out. But they never pay attention to one of the most important aspects of getting through any type of survival event: a resilient mindset.
Being in a survival situation is scary and confusing at times. If you are unable to manage your emotions and think clearly, not only can you fail to get through it with ease, but you may make mistakes that could be detrimental in more ways than one.
Some people think they don’t have the inner strength that they would need to endure a survival event, especially a severe one. But you probably already have this trait in other aspects of your life, and you simply need to hone it for survival situations, too.
For example, in the past, you may have lost a loved one or gotten fired from your job. You may have felt like it was the end of the world at the time, but you survived and got through because of your resilient mindset.
With survival prepping, mental resilience isn’t something you hope to have, it’s a necessity for each person who is going to be with you. It’s a resource that you need to renew at all times so that you can rely on it whenever the pressure is on and you have to avoid panic and increased stress.
The last thing you want to do is make a poor decision that will compromise your safety and cause you to be overwhelmed. With survival situations, there’s always going to be some sort of unforeseen circumstances that don’t turn out as you had planned, and a resilient mindset will help you to adapt and be innovative in finding the solutions that will support you through the event.
Why You Need to Evaluate Your Mindset for Resiliency
The first thing you want to do is evaluate your mindset currently so that you know how much work you need to do to prepare yourself in this manner. Some people are naturally calm and effective in handling challenging situations.
You may think that you have a grasp on things, but everyday life is a bit different from a stressful survival situation, so conducting an analysis will give you a better indication about how well you would handle something like this.
It’s always beneficial to understand where you have strengths and weaknesses, even when it comes to mindset, because it will help you navigate situations work on things that need to be shored up ahead of time.
Keep in mind that as you go through this journey of building mental resilience, you need to be analyzing the mindset of those who will be with you through a survival event, too. That includes your significant other, spouse as well as your children.
First, consider how adaptable the person is. If they tend to break down if anything doesn’t go as planned, that can be a problem in a survival situation where everything can be unexpected and put a damper on things.
Anything can happen in survival situations. You might lose supplies or a plan gets derailed in some way. How well can you handle this type of change? Are you flexible enough to go with the flow and find a different way to accommodate your needs or are you going to throw up your hands and be at a loss? Are you perhaps the type of person that ‘loses their shit”, screams, shouts, hollers, rants and raves and creates even more drama?
Being adaptable is the first aspect of mental resilience that you need to practice. You can come up with scenarios that would put you in precarious situations that you weren’t expecting, such as how you would build fire if you didn’t have your fire building supplies on hand.
Another trait that you need to have that will contribute to mental resilience is optimism. If you are the type of person who is always negative and can’t see any silver lining, this can be a problem in a survival situation where a positive outlook is going to be crucial to enduring the events on a day-to-day basis.
People who are negative minded, often bring down the entire group. It’s important that you work to not only project optimism yourself to lift the morale of your loved ones, but to squash someone else’s mindset who can infect everyone else and cause problems. This may be uncomfortable and challenging but it may mean you have to tell that person to ‘shut it’ if they haven’t got anything positive, constructive or helpful to say.
What are Things That Can Create Barriers to Mental Resilience?
Once you know if you have the traits of a mentally resilient person, or if you discover that you don’t have them, it’s time to strengthen your mind in this area. One thing you have to recognize is what can serve as an obstacle to you having this kind of mental strength.
These are known as psychological obstacles that can put you at risk in a survival event. Fear is one of the first obstacles you may face that can paralyze you when it comes to decision making or cause you to heading the wrong direction.
Survival events can be stressful, whether they are minor inconveniences or major, life changing events. You don’t want fear to cloud your judgment and eliminate your ability to make smart decisions.
If you are the type of person who tends to get overly worried or anxious whenever things happen that are out of your control or seem scary, you want to know how to immediately center yourself and calm yourself down with deep breathing exercises or logical thinking so that you can operate from a clear mind.
Naturally, the best way to be calm and center yourself is by learning meditation and deep breathing exercises. A lot of people think meditation is difficult, but we came across a super easy and fast system to learn and master meditation, you can access it HERE
Just as fear can sabotage your survival success, if you are overly confident and unafraid that can also can also create big problems. You don’t want to be taking unnecessary risks or ignoring gut instinct or knowledge that could benefit you, because remember that there are consequences to your decisions, and being cocky or over-confident can be a double-edged sword that can make matters worse, too.
Having an overly relaxed, complacent or lackadaisical mindset is not going to serve you well, either. You want to be proactive in a survival event, and not simply sitting back allowing things to happen because you think you can handle whatever may come.
How to Go About Strengthening Your Mindset for Survival
In order to build a resilient mindset, you want to practice being strong on a regular basis in all areas of your life. It requires you to train your brain to function in a way that is mindful, positive, and calm.
Practicing mindfulness and having a calm meditative mind in all areas of your life is going to help you in a survival event because you won’t be operating based on immediate feelings, but rather logical thought patterns.
You may also want to try tactics like visualization so that you can empower yourself by envisioning you getting through a particularly challenging situation that may be unnerving.
There are other things that will contribute to you having a more resilient mindset. When you feel capable and prepared in survival, it’s automatically going to give you peace of mind and calm your state of anxiety.
For example, if you know you have the skills needed to survive in the wilderness without any supplies, you won’t be panicking and operating out of a place of fear. Likewise, if you do have supplies, that will give you some relief knowing that you have what you need to get through the situation.
Even your physical strength can contribute to your mental resilience. When you have a healthy, active body that is capable of hiking for long periods of time, climbing something or lowering yourself down from something, building shelter, and so on, it allows you to feel comfortable in these shocking situations that you didn’t expect to happen.
Mental resiliency is something that is going to fortify your entire group, so it’s important that you work on this aspect of survival with each member of your family. You don’t want to berate them if they panic or are scared and feel overwhelmed, but rather help them overcome those weaknesses so that when a survival emergency occurs, everyone in your group will have the resiliency and skills they need to overcome what is happening.
Now that you know about Cultivating a Resilient Mindset it is time to study the next chapter in our series Survival Prepping 101 – Part 36: Follow Our 7-Step Starter Guide to Survival Prepping.
If you missed our previous installment you can read it here: Survival Prepping 101 – Part 34: You Need to Create a Long term Survival Plan