It’s not your stash or your equipment that make you a prepper. More than having your stockpile, possessing the right mindset is an important aspect of being prepared. One of the most important mental qualities you need to achieve is situational awareness.
Many preppers tend to think that preparation is having the right gear, with their idea of freedom, self-reliance, and survival skills being simply having lots of guns. When SHTF, it’s not just your equipment that will save you, but also how you think and what you know.
What makes a prepper?
Mindset is what separates a prepper from the average person. A prepper thinks independently, makes his own decisions, lives as a free man, and does not expect to get any helping hand from the government.
As a prepper, you need to have a plan. There is a stark difference between reading about something in a survival book and actually learning, practicing, and using the skills (hunting, fishing, foraging, and making fire, among others) needed for survival.
A prepper analyzes the situation they’re in and every decision they make. When you do this, you become aware of the consequences of your actions and, in the process, learn to focus only on the things that are important, especially in the context of surviving a SHTF scenario.
Finally, a prepper has situational awareness. This entails knowing what is happening around you at all times. Needless to say, achieving situational awareness requires you to train both your eyes and your mind to identify crucial details, no matter how small they can be. A prepper who has achieved this power can assess and detect potential threats in any situation they find themselves in.
Achieving situational awareness
Situational awareness is not something you learn overnight. It requires plenty of discipline and focus.
Start by watching others’ body language
The best way to start developing your situational awareness is to watch how people around you move and react. These could be your relatives, friends, co-workers, or even the people in the street. Analyze their posture, eye movements, facial expressions, the tone of voice, pitch, and others and determine what these things say about their state of mind and current situation.
Take it one step at a time
As mentioned above, learning the skill takes time. There are things you don’t know yet and that’s fine. Open yourself to new ideas and give yourself time to learn and practice. This is how you will gradually expand your horizons.
Be tough as nails
Toughness isn’t always physical. You don’t become tough just because you’re strong or you have a high pain tolerance. As a true prepper, you need to be able to withstand even tough environments without complaining or losing your ability and drive to survive. Even when you find yourself in a tight spot, without the luxuries and conveniences available to others, you need to be able to function.
Possess discipline
True discipline means not being lazy nor distracted from doing the things you need to do just because you’re inconvenienced a little. It means not being afraid to lose comfort or to do things the hard way. Discipline means knowing when to speak. Being disciplined helps you become tougher.
Don’t be negative
A prepper needs to try to be the solution instead of a part of the problem. That said, a prepper chooses to be positive instead of criticizing everything they see.
By living these lessons every day, you will learn to be tough and develop your situational awareness in the process. Over time, you will come to understand how to be a true prepper, one that thrives and not just survives.
Hone your survival skills with tips from Survival.news.
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