Many people ask me about bug out bags and gear I used in my adventures or what I need to prepare. My response is usually this. First and foremost, mental preparedness. Second, my plans. Third, physical fitness. Fourth is practical knowledge of as many skills as possible. The gear and bag contents are the last thing on my preparation list as I can improvise as necessary.
But if you want to know what’s in my bag, I have a section here (coming soon).
Mental preparedness. What the heck does that mean? Most people tend to get emotional when things go awry. They can’t remain calm and clearly think through the situation. By the time they realize they need to take action, it may be too late. It’s like panicking in water when you are white water rafting on Class 5 rapids and you are now in the water. They take in water, they get thrashed around, maybe break a few bones, and by the time they can clearly think, they are in the hospital in a bed figuring out what happened. This is similar in many extreme sports, and if you aren’t mentally prepared, you will fail. Preparing for failure is also a requirement. Imagine outdoor lead climbing, and you are in a precarious situation but not close enough to the next bolt. If you are mentally prepared, you are going to adjust your base of support, find a better technique to progress closer to the next bolt, clip the quickdraw, and immediate clip your rope. But you tell yourself, I am prepared to fail and fall more than 10 feet – hold on to the quickdraw and hang on for the ride.
Mental preparedness in survival depends on the situation. It’s situational awareness. In the military, they say where’s the sitrep (or situational report)? Well, no one is going to prepare a sitrep for you, so you need to mentally prepare that in your head. Let’s take a simple example of a power outage. Here is the situational report I create in my head:
- Power is out – is it grid or a wider outage?
- Why is it out? Don’t spend too much time if the answer is not derived quickly.
- Do I have cell phone coverage?
- Is potable water no longer available? This depends on your location.
- ETA for power restoration
- What do I need to do to prepare for this situation
- What actions do I need to take? And take action!
- Continue finding out the cause of the outage, and if the cause can impact me otherwise
Now it can be a very simple problem, like a grid outage due to maintenance by the local power provider. But it could be that there is a lot of lightning and flooding causing chaos to power. If the latter is the case, you start to update the sitrep and prepare for what is next.
Best way to create a sitrep? Do it the next time an event occurs and write out the sitrep on paper to practice. Eventually, you will be doing this mentally. You can download a sitrep template at my Patreon site or create your own.
Your willingness to survive, and your willingness to help others survive is the other mental preparedness. Panick, grief, despair, and many other negative things will get you nowhere and potentially get you killed. Remain calm, quickly produce your sitrep and action items, and move forward to survive. Next topic will be your plans.