The first step to becoming prepared is to build the right mindset about being prepared and then to make a preparedness plan that you can follow. Start with basic planning then move on to longer term and more in depth planning.

Read below for more on the Mindset.

You’ll also want to read:

  1. Evacuating versus ‘digging in’: how and why to plan for both.
  2. Short-Term Emergency Planning: What You Might Not Have Thought About, and then
  3. Planning for Long-Term Situations

Preparedness Mindset

As a teenager in high school, I remember walking through the burned wreckage of the house that my parent’s friends lived in looking for anything to salvage for them. They lost everything photo’s, journals, family heirlooms.

A few years ago the house next door to where I live right now burnt down, I remember standing there watching it go up in flames with the fire department doing their best to try and save it but within an hour there was nothing but rubble left. In both cases people I’ve known for years lost everything, they had no insurance, no off-site emergency storage supplies, nothing.

That taught me to get insurance just in case because you never know when an emergency will happen. I’ve grew  up in a home where my parents grew a big garden, and had a huge food supply, and it was second nature to me to be prepared… or so I thought, until I was laid off for the first time.

You never think it will happen to you

I have to say that there aren’t really very many things more demoralizing than coming home from work to your wife and 2 small children, shell shocked and then the realization that you really aren’t as prepared as you thought you were.

I think it became really clear for me when I attended the funeral of a good friend of mine who died unexpectedly leaving his wife and kids devastated. I think that lots of the time you and I secretly believe that “Bad Things” are something that happens to someone else. The reality of the matter is that “Bad Things” happen regularly, and they can happen to you and me at anytime without warning. Now I don’t want you to think that I’m one of those doom and gloom, the world is ending & the Stone Age is coming back type of people.

I’m not.

Its just that bad things do happen.

I’m the type of person who realizes that good things happen far more often than the bad things do or none of us would be here. I don’t go through my day paranoid about what awful disaster could happen, but I also won’t jump in front of oncoming traffic.

I just believe that thinking about what could happen and using your common sense lead to only one answer: it’s better to have a plan and be prepared for when bad things happen, than to be broadsided at the worst possible moment.

I have also learned that there is nothing worse than thinking you are prepared and that everything is good, only to find out that you aren’t at the worst possible moment. I decided to live what I was taught in Boy Scouts: “Be Prepared”

That’s when it struck me: Where do I start?

I knew that I needed to get prepared, but I had no Idea what that meant or what to do, so I read everything I could get me hands on to try and sort things out.

That’s when I found out that people who believe it’s important to get prepared and try to be ready for emergencies and disasters are called “preppers” or “survivalists”.

As I learned I realized that I kept running into two types of people: people who think that buying and storing a bunch of guns, survival gear and emergency rations is “being prepared” (these people are often scared of the future and paint a really depressing picture of complete devastation and return to animal savagery) and the people who realize that being prepare is something that can be a fun and worthwhile part of your overall lifestyle and also a what to be able to serve others in your community.

I got tire of wading through the doom and gloom (and there is a lot out there!) and decided that being scared of the future NEVER helps anyone, and I also realized that at least half of the paranoid preppers probably had no idea what to do with their supplies if the end happened anyways so I wouldn’t do them much good.

The preppers and survivalists that I became really impressed with were the ones that had a good attitude, knew what they were doing and seemed generally optimistic for the future. Being prepared is part of their lifestyle, not some extra weight that hangs over their head.

They taught me that having the right attitude and mindset is more important than any supplies you might have.

If you have the right mindset, you will be able to develop a plan that works. And that working plan will teach you how to use whatever resources you have left after a crisis hits.

The right mindset will also help you realize that when disasters hit, there are people who help others and people who try to take advantage and hurt others.

Yes things, and people, can get very dangerous in a crisis but if you have the right preparedness mindset you will attract the right kinds of people to you, and that will make things better and safer for everyone.

So what is the preparedness mindset?

It basically this

  1. I realize that bad things happen.
  2. I want not just survive, but also thrive through them
  3. To survive and thrive I need to learn, plan, and prepare
  4. I need to make it a part of my life so that it’s natural to me
  5. I’m responsible to others and to my community so I need to be able to help others prepare if needed.
  6. I also need to be mindful of the needs of others and be a source of stability and sanity so that I can attract people who will help rebuild, and bring more safety and stability to the situation if disaster does strike.
  7. I realize that life has too many opportunities for me to be fearful, I prepare and I live happy ready to act through good or bad times, and to make them good again.

Everyone says it a different way, but those positive preppers I was telling you about all seem to have those things as part of their mindset.

Next page: Step 2 – Preparing for short term emergencies >>