What is Mental Preparedness?

As like minded people in the preparedness community, we focus on gear, skills, and scenarios heavily to plan how we will deal with hardships that we may encounter. There are two other aspects that are much easier to overlook because they are much more work to improve for many of us, physical and mental preparedness. I’ve covered the basics of physical preparedness in another post that you can read here: https://nickspreparedness.com/2020/08/03/survival-fitness-for-preppers/ .

Mental preparedness is, at least to me, more important because it helps us reach our other goals, including physical preparedness. I have battled myself more in my life than any other adversary and I have realized that many times it was without even knowing that I was in a fight. I’ve had nowhere near what would be considered a difficult life. I have been very fortunate in many ways and am blessed in spite of myself and my actions over the years, yet I find myself to sometimes be bitter, angry, depressed, or anxious. Sometimes I feel a combination of all of these at once and it can really sidetrack my path to a goal. Mental preparedness is learning how to deal with these or any other detrimental mindsets before we are placed under the extreme pressures of a disaster, collapse of society, or infrastructure.

An important note on mental preparedness: While this post is meant to help bring awareness to the importance of mental control, I encourage anyone that needs help to seek professional counsel. It may take more than a book or a motivational speaker to get through the layers we have built around ourselves as a defensive measure. Don’t exhaust yourself fighting alone.

Why is Mental Preparedness Important?

Have you ever had one of those days that keeps getting worse? Some days it seems like we have a flat tire that happens to be during a rain storm, while on the way to an important appointment and find we have a flat spare tire and then get a call from someone with a complaint or problem that we are expected to deal with on top of everything. Think about the last time you had a day like that and how you reacted to the last straw. Did you stop, take a deep breath and adapt to the situation and continue forward? Did you loose your cool and scold the person who brought more pressure right at you tipping point? Did you shut down and retreat from everything? I have done the last two more times that i can count. I have expended more energy pitching a fit than it would have taken to solve every problem I had control of. I have lost time and progress in life by withdrawing and burying my head that i can never get back. It took years to realize that these were things that I had to learn to control.

With all of those reactions in mind, let’s consider being placed in the aftermath of a huge destructive storm and forced to survive with just what we have and with the survivors we have with us. Imagine the intensity of the emotions and pressures upon each of us in that situation. Most of us have never had a bad day in comparison to the ones we claim to be preparing for. Are we really ready to deal with it? Can we overcome ourselves enough to prepare now and adapt and perform if the time ever comes when we must?

Mental preparedness, for me, is correcting negative habits that keep me from being prepared as well as preparing to deal with the harsh difficulties we may encounter in survival situations. The concepts are both based in mental conditioning and habits and working to improve one goal will sharpen the other as well.

How Do I Improve My Mental Toughness?

As I mentioned before, never discount the help of a professional. Sometimes a counselor can help us realize things about ourselves that we would never see through our own eyes. That said, I’d like to offer some places to start.

Begin by taking a serious look at your perspective and understand that you are the only person that sees things exactly the way you do. Try to separate the expectations you have for others from expectations you have for yourself. We also need to look closely at how we react to situations. Survival will require us to make pragmatic decisions based heavily on utility and facts instead of emotion. Learning to separate fact from feelings is an important skill that will serve us well in all facets of life, especially when under pressure. The following book is one that i have read and am re-reading because of the wealth of the beneficial knowledge it offers. Pick up a copy or grab the audio book and listen on your commute. Click the picture below.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

The other point I struggle with is habit. My tendency to over eat and under exercise has caused me to limit my fitness level severely. My habit of procrastination has left me behind on numerous goals i have set. Learning what our negative habits are and finding ways to reprogram them is crucial to improving our mental preparedness. An added bonus is that successful habit correction boosts the whole of our mental health and emotional intelligence and benefits us in other parts of life as well. If you are interested in the basis of habits or how to correct them, I encourage you to read or listen to this book by Charles Duhigg:

The Power of Habit

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What Is Responsible Gun Ownership?

I have chosen to do both a blog post as well as a video (coming soon) on this subject of gun storage at home. There are a few similarities from my video on Vehicle Firearm Security that you can watch here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLAcsL6QQ-8&t=12s. The devices I showed in the video can be useful at home as well, but one of the greatest concerns of storing firearms in the home is even more important than theft prevention. It is the safety of children and those who may be a danger to themselves and others.

While I have no qualms about saying that any gun law is an infringement on our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms, we as a society often forget that for every right which we are entrusted, there is also an implied responsibility. As it applies to firearms, I believe that responsibility is to not only be constantly mindful of the safe rules of firearm handling, but to also be responsible for the security of firearms not in hand or on our person.

One of the greatest enemies the gun owning public has is our own complacency!

Yes, you read that correctly. Just as i pointed out in my video on firearm security in the vehicle, stolen guns are the vast majority of the guns used in crimes. More importantly than that, the number of accidental shootings caused by unsecured firearms being found by children is painful to read. I personally know someone who lost a young family member to an accidental shooting. Family stopped by for a surprise visit and he hadn’t put his pistol up simply because it was just he and his wife there all week. No more honest a mistake ever led to a more horrible tragedy. I encourage everyone to make sure your firearms are either on your person and under your control or in some way secure to make sure that no one else has to go through this heart breaking tragedy.

The danger extends beyond that of children. Many suicides and homicides happen each year because someone who was psychologically unable to control the urges they felt had access to a firearm. While mental illness is a struggle that goes untreated or diagnosed in many people, some of the “mass shooters,” as the media calls them, have had long histories of documented mental health issues and in many cases, they simply used a firearm that was unsecured in their home to commit horrible acts. I can’t sit here and say that they wouldn’t have found another way to commit these acts, however there is no way I would want to wear the guilt of knowing my lack of responsibility made it that much easier for a person to injure themselves or others with a weapon I owned.

This post is a reminder to me as well. I have had lapses of responsibility that could have had horrendous consequences. By fortune or God’s grace, i was able to correct that failure before anyone got injured, but i still shudder to think about it.

Home Firearm Storage Options

I’m going to list some options in order of cost and mention the pros and cons of each as we go down the list. Check out my YouTube video below to see examples of some of the simplest and cheapest way to keep your home safe.

Gun Locks and Trigger Locks

If i remember correctly, the last gun i purchased and several prior to that, I was asked if I needed a gun lock and had to sign that I had been offered one. I always refuse because I have a safe, as well as a file cabinet full of those locks when they were supplied automatically by many manufacturers, however they do serve the purpose of disabling a gun from being used while the device is attached. Some versions lock through the trigger guard blocking access to the trigger. Other types are simply a pad lock with a flexible shank that is threaded through the action of the gun to keep the bolt from closing, preventing the gun from firing.

These locks are not much of a theft deterrent unless they are attached to an anchor point or cable, and then a determined adult can probably destroy the lock in fairly short order with some basic tools. The application that these locks do serve well is to keep guns from being accidentally fired by children or others who find it. I will place a link below, but you can contact any firearm manufacturer and they will provide one for you, usually free of charge. There is no excuse not to have at least this level of security against accidental shootings!

Snapsafe Cable Padlock

Snapsafe Lockable Gun Box with Security Cables