Suggested Courses for Mental Preparedness

Helping to prepare yourself mentally for a survival situation is a process that takes time. There are several different courses which you can sign up for or attend that will help to prepare you. An outdoorsman survival weekend course is a great way to get yourself acquainted with the outdoors and actually applying what you have read and learned to real-life situations. These outdoor weekend groups are great because they simulate the situation giving you all the same real life dangers just in a controlled environment where if something becomes life threatening the situation can be remedied immediately.

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Signing up for gun safety courses, knife throwing courses, and other general survival skill courses will help to prepare your mind by solidifying that you effectively know how to handle these situations. Rock climbing courses, zipline courses and technical readiness courses are all different styles of courses that you can take that will provide you with a different level of mental preparedness. Often your local gun club will offer courses that you may find beneficial for these types of circumstances as well. It is one thing to read about survival skills or to practice tying a knot in your garage, but applying these skills in the time of survival can be quite different. Joining courses such as the ones listed here can give you the opportunity to test your skills.

 

Easiest way is to just get your arse out into the bush!
Make it day trips to start
Build a fire, keep matches as a backup but try other means first
cook some bacon and eggs, clean up after you!
Build a bit of shade/cover and see how it works when it rains

Any major screw-ups and you just pack up and head home !
Learn the lesson and try again
After a while you will get comfortable with it all and it will get easy
Try to stay a little longer doing more with less each time!

A full on bush trek/camp will teach a lot but as it is a one off very little will be retained after a few months!

Pick a weekend per month every month and go bush maybe the first weekend each month and car camp
Go regardless of the weather conditions, get there and do your best to deal with the conditions dealt!
Build your skills each time and don't worry if it gets too much and you bolt for home early, don't beat yourself up about it just learn from it
and do better next time!
One importand bit is to set some goals each time then debrief yourself afterwards to see how you went!
You will find if you get the little things right things will go well!

A torch is useless if you cant find it in the dark!
I keep a low power led light on a string around my neck 24/7 it is not my main torch and it is a pissy little light but it is always there
and lets me see enough to find things like my main torch and spare batteries! It runs on a single AA battery and as it is only used for seconds at a time the battery lasts years but I change it every year at easter when I renew the batteries in everything I have, some are recycled through remotes or non important things like wall clocks etc.

 

Half of mental preparedness is knowing you can do stuff as you actually have done and are comfortable with the physical side

If you cant actually swim and have only read about it, diving into a pool will be mentally hard!

Actually doing stuff verse just reading about it takes a lot of stress away!

I have spent a lifetime actually doing stuff, there are few things I am not familiar with!
I am confident in my abilities so stress is low and my mind stays on the important things!

example walking down street once talking on phone to boss a bloody great rotty attacked me!
without even breaking stride I dropkicked it and sent it scurrying away without interrupting my phone call!
No stress as I have been attacked my many many dogs before, I was mentally prepared by physical experience!

Physical and mental are not opposites they are complementery parts of the one thing!

 

Well I have found the more things I can do well the better my mental attitude!

 

Feeling prepared comes from knowing you know and you're taking action. You can always get something wrong, but then it becomes easy to review, revise and tweak it until you achieve the desired result. But if you never take the initial action, then you will find it hard because a lot of situations that we find ourselves in, we are not equipped to handle other than the information that we have read or have received from others, we have no experience. So if you only bank on experience to get things done, then you will always fail. Sometimes you have to jump in the deep end to find out you can swim!