Basic Survival Skills Includes Skills for Wilderness and Mental Survival

No matter where you are, no matter the situation, certain basic survival skills are necessary if you want to have the best chance of surviving any kind of disaster, especially a long-term end-of-the-world-as-you-know-it event. The more different skills you are able to master, the greater the chance you and your family will survive not only a post-apocalyptic scenario, but even a basic, lost in the woods scenario.

Necessary Skills

The more skills you have the better. Here are some basic survival skills necessary to survival in any scenario. You must master these physical skills if you expect to survive.

• Land Navigation with a compass and without
• Locating water/water purification
• Finding and/or making shelter
• Starting and maintaining a fire
• Finding food/hunting and trapping
• Learn how to hide
• First Aid
• Self-defense
• Basic nutrition

Mental Preparation and Basic Survival Skills

However, you can have all the basic survival skills in the world, but if you’re not mentally prepared for disaster, you’re going to rapidly become overwhelmed and be unable to cope. Once stuck in that state you’re not going to be any good when it comes to navigation, making a fire, finding food, etc. 

The first part of mental preparation is getting past denial and believing something can happen, and it can happen to you. Many times a stumbling block to people really becoming proficient in self-defense is the lack of belief that they could actually become the victim of an attack. 

The world is full of people who go around thinking, “it’ll never happen to me”. As long as you go thinking nothing will happen to you, you’re not going to be motivated to train as hard as you need to in order to really be able to protect yourself and your family. 

If you believe you will never have to start a fire from scratch you will probably never become proficient at the task. Don’t let your disbelief stand between you and survival.

Stress

You can’t avoid it, and it is necessary to our lives. You may not think of managing stress as a part of your basic skills, but it is. Stress gives you the chance to learn about yourself and what you are made of. It stimulates you to perform your best and it provides you with challenges that teach you and enable you to grow as a person. 

The key is to not have too much of it. If you’re not careful your stress becomes distress. Here are some of the negative signs of too much stress.

• Depression
• Inability to make important decisions
• Forgetfulness
• Angry outbursts
• Low energy level
• Carelessness
• Shirking responsibilities
• Obsessive worrying
• Frequent mistakes
• Inability to get along with others

Stress can either motivate you or stop you in your tracks. Don’t let it stop you in your tracks.

Safety in Numbers

In a post- apocalyptic world, you may find safety in numbers. However the time to get together a survival group is not when the world as you know it has come crashing down around your ears. Now is the time to associate yourself and your family with others that possess basic survival skills that you don’t have. 

You may not be a natural leader. Your skills may lie elsewhere and there’s nothing wrong with letting someone more capable being in charge. Make a plan where your group will meet in the event of a disaster and you should already know what each person’s strengths and weaknesses are. 

Each person has his/her set of responsibilities and everyone immediately sets about doing their part in the survival of the group. Don’t wait until the world is disabled from the blast of an EMP to figure this all out. The time to do it is now before it’s too late.

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