You don’t need to be an expert to effectively manage a crisis, and anyone can be a survivor if they know what to do. Many people make survival a cottage industry, offering methods, tricks and techniques for sale that are designed to help anyone. However, the average Joe doesn’t need to participate in special training, seminars or buy books in order to survive. It is human nature, and most of us already have what it takes to make it through simply by using our heads and remaining calm, cool and collected through out the duration of the crisis.
There is no doubt that training and focused attention on survival methods and techniques can help, but all they really do is awaken our innate sense of wanting to live. You can develop the skills and the confidence to be a survivor simply by thinking about it and making sure that you use the right resources and choices when the time comes to act. Being a good crisis manager involves carefully thinking things through, making the right decisions and avoiding panic and uncertainty. This is not that difficult to accomplish, and a little bit of common sense can help a lot when it comes to knowing what to do and what the best decisions are to make.
So, if you are caught in the heat of a serious life and death struggle, the best thing that you can do is keep your wits about you. Don’t panic and try to remain above the drama of the situation. You should try and get appropriate training if you are serious about survival and learning how to overcome almost anything, but in reality anyone can beat the odds simply by not panicking and making the right choices as they go. So, the first thing to think about is how far you want to take this survival thing, and what are you willing to learn that can reinforce this basic and completely part of our self?
Being a good crisis manager involves planning and training that will reinforce the abilities that we all have. While we can pull off amazing things in the heat of a moment on our own if we think right, it is always better to be prepared and equipped to tackle specific as well as general problems. This does not mean that you should enroll in an intensive wilderness survival course, but you should at least become familiar with the topic of survival, learn from the experiences of others and give a lot of thought to how you would react to a range of different situations.
This will not only give you a broad foundation on how to deal with any situation, but it will also help you to instinctively learn what kinds of questions to ask, what to look for and how to react when you are called to act in a hurry. So, learning how to be a crisis manager is easy in one sense because the same rules apply to almost any situation, even if the circumstances may be a little different. Preparation, rehearsal and thinking clearly are all part of the package, and the more you are able to do beforehand usually translates in to a better overall experience later during the event itself.
Practice also produces confidence as well as a sense of control as you actively choose how to respond instead of being driven or directed by the event. You choose how to flee a hurricane or how to survive a flood. You choose how to deal with a medical emergency instead of screaming in a panic for someone to help who may or may not be there. The more thought and attention that you can pay to imagining different scenarios, reading up on what others think and making sure that you have the necessary supplies on hand will make managing a serious crisis much easier.
All of us should be turning our attention to survival now more than ever. There are one of a million things that can go wrong and cause us to be immediately placed in danger. Unfortunately, most of us are ill prepared or equipped to really take an emergency head on, even if we are able to react in a controlled, calm and focused fashion. If you can pay attention to preparation, thinking, imagining and planning, then you can put yourself ahead of the pack and get in front of the disaster instead of being driven by it when it happens. Learn more about how easy it is to develop and hone your crisis management skills, and you can be more then ready to act appropriately when the time comes. The skills that you develop can save your life, and this is one of the most important things that you can ever do.
