Prepping for emergencies is a journey. It doesn’t matter your political orientation. It doesn’t matter your budget. There are things out there that are taking innocent lives every single day, and there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family form them.
Car crashes, riots, assault, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, even a job loss – the list of disasters is long and intimidating. This alone is enough to intimidate people from getting started prepping, or from keeping it up.
Do you sometimes feel you’re not doing enough to prepare? If you’re in the wrong environment, if your family doesn’t approve of this lifestyle, it can be tough and you may feel a lack of motivation. This can only mean one thing, that you’re not as prepared as you should be.
As you may or may not know, survival has many aspects… bugging in and out, getting home, fitness, homesteading, stockpiling, raising animals, bug out vehicles, home security and on and on. These can all be a little bit intimidating and could cause a lack of action on your part.
In what follows, I’m going to do something different: give you all of the ways I can think of to keep you motivated enough to stay on the path to being better prepared.
#1. Watch YouTube videos of disasters
Not to scare yourself to death, but to learn from them. No, it’s not the same as joining the army and experiencing close combat, but it’s better than nothing. You get to put yourself in the middle of the action and wonder what you would do to escape.
#2. Watch survival movies
Survival movies and TV shows are fake and often exaggerated, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. The part I like about them is that they always end well. Optimism is one thing you’ll have to keep when things will be at their worst.
Movies such as Doomsday, 2012, The Day after Tomorrow and Alone in the Wilderness will definitely inspire you to work harder on being prepared. And let’s not forget documentaries such as Surviving the Dust Bowl and The Revenant or TV series such as Revolution.
#3. Engage in conversation
A lot of people who are active on blogs are passive and don’t engage in dialogue. Doing so, will enable your brain to think of solutions not just for yourself but also for others. Make the switch from passive learning to active learning, you’ll thank yourself for it.
#4. Don’t be afraid to speak out
Since political correctness has divided the entire world, you cannot just be passive and let the leftists say what they will about the way things are supposed to be. Speak up. It’ll be hard at first, people are going to put you in your place, you will lose debates… but it’ll will get better.
You shouldn’t be afraid to be put down in your place when it comes to politics and/or survival. It’s the only way to grow, to consolidate your beliefs and then convince others.
#5. Start doing stuff
If you’ve been reading survival content for a while now and you haven’t done anything yet, the odds of you becoming prepped to the teeth are not only slim, but they diminish as days go by. Do something today. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if you paused reading the article just to do something. You don’t even have to spend money if you don’t want to.
Print a google map of your neighborhood and mark all bug out routes.
Go jogging or do a few push-ups, they will improve your strength.
Buy a cheap survival knife. The Morakniv Companion is excellent quality (also my weapon of choice for when my bug out bag).
I could go on and on, but you get the point. Action trumps reading. Then do more action. All of these are a drop in the ocean but they’re enough to get you going and they will add up over time.
#6. Start with the survival aspect you’re most attracted to
If you start with something you really enjoy, your mind will associate this with positive feelings. Once you get good at it, you’ll easily tackle other aspects pertaining to survival.
For example, if you’re a fan of going to the gym, you can switch to tactical workouts. This way you’ll do something for your survival and enjoy the heck out of it. Then, it’ll be much easier to transition to something such as bugging out than if you were to start with that.
#7. Think about what will happen to you and your family
Though I left this at the end, I think it’s the most important motivator of all. Your life. Your spouse’s life. Your children’s well-being. Not many people like to think about this but survival means you’re likely to get injured or even killed. That’s enough for me to take things very seriously.
How will your family react to a food crisis like the one happening in Venezuela as I’m typing this? People eating dogs, cats and pigeons because they didn’t have a stockpile.
What would your family do if you were to die? And how painful would an injury or even a slow death be? I hope I haven’t scared you but this is the reality of surviving. Not as cool as some survival reality TV shows would have you believe, that’s for sure.
My dad was military. My grandfather was a cop. They served their country well. But I don’t like taking orders. I’m taking matters into my own hands so I’m not just preparing, I’m going to a friggin’ war to provide you the best of the best survival and preparedness content out there.