When it comes to managing the danger, the world is divided into two types of people: the mentally prepared; those who can rely on their resilience and ability to make decisions under duress and relegate their fate to Lady Luck or her equally fickle stepsister, Hope.
Your survival in any life-threatening altercation initially depends on three important personal factors: your mindset, your mental engagement with your environment and those decisions resulting from your assessment and planning. If you don’t have the right mindset going into it then you are mentally unprepared to do what it takes to solve problems placing you a step behind the action-reaction power curve.
Mindset
Paramount to managing a clear and present danger is to first be mentally prepared to engage. Most people believe it won’t happen. “Hey, it’s never going to happen to me or anyone in my family.” A very close second viewpoint is “Well, if something happens, it’s not my problem—after all, isn’t that’s what we pay our first responders for?” Neither of the above will serve you best when it hits the fan. The ‘A’ answer is “My personal protection is my responsibility.”
When you assume responsibility, you automatically assume control of the situation as opposed to the situation controlling you. You have placed yourself ahead of the action-reaction power curve simply by asserting control. Doing so has placed you at cause as opposed to at effect of the situation.
Managing danger is dependent on you having the appropriate mindset going into it. If you truly believe that it can never happen to you or that if it does, someone else will solve the problem for you, then you will be blindsided by a rapidly developing threat capable of extreme physical violence.
Conversely, armed with the appropriate mindset that personal security is your responsibility, and being mindful of your surroundings, gives you stable mental footing to meet the challenges of our ever-changing environment.
Mental Engagement
Equally as important as an appropriate mindset when faced with danger, you may find yourself beset by slow or poor decision-making.
We humans need information to process so that our minds can make decisions based on that information. Good information in means quality decisions followed by physical actions based on those decisions. Good information in translates to appropriate action. Bad or no information in results in poor or no physical action. It all boils down to information input.
Sketch Planning
The wo recommended soft skills that can optimize your immediate response options are mental engagement and sketch planning.
We all know what situational awareness is, but it’s much more than simply a matter of sitting with your back to a wall or keeping your head on a swivel. You can place your eyeballs on anything you want but if you don’t engage your mind with your environment then you are looking but not seeing. It was Henry David Thoreau who is credited with saying “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Checking the time by looking at your wristwatch twice means that you weren’t mentally engaged the first time. Looking at it a second time you engaged your mind with your environment, and you actually saw what time it was.
Sketch planning is a protective services parlance for “make a plan on the fly.”
Should you observe someone following you in your car then you simply accept the fact and then plan accordingly. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate, just come up with a dirt simple plan right now like “I’m going to make three lefts here, or if on foot “I’m going to duck into this restaurant for a few minutes.”
Appropriate mindset, engaging your mind with your environment and sketch planning provide you the tactical advantage in proactively managing danger.