Do you ever get frustrated trying to explain the fundamentals of preparedness to people? Shows like Doomsday Preppers have done us a bit of a disservice because it shows the extremes, rather than realistic prepping for everyday people like you and me.

What Is Emergency Preparedness

When working to understand something, it's usually best, to begin by defining whatever it is you want to understand better.

In this case, Dictionary.com defines preparedness as "the state of being prepared; readiness."

In other words, preparedness is your ability, based on instincts, knowledge, and personal effort to be able to face the adversities of life with skill and confidence. These things combined help improve your chances of successfully overcoming the situation. 

That sounds like a lot and can be kind of overwhelming. But if you focus on realistic prepping, then it feels a lot more manageable. Just think about the stories of people who weren't prepared and how you don't want to be one of them.

Why is Realistic Prepping Essential

Also, just as important as understanding what preparedness is, we need to understand why realistic prepping is essential.

The reason why emergency preparedness is important is two-fold.

First, helping others who are in need is a crucial part of preparedness that humans have practiced throughout our history.

The fact is that more often than not, we, as preparedness-minded people end up helping others out during disasters and other difficult times.

Why is that?

Well, that's because we tend to be more aware, more ready, and better able to avoid personal disasters that others may not.

Personal Survival

Secondly, when we are personally involved in a difficult predicament, we've moved into the arena of preparedness survival. It's time to use our skills, knowledge, and instincts to successfully move past or deal with the problem, whatever it may be.

This is when all of the time you put into your preparedness will pay off. You will be successful at minimizing or altogether avoiding the effects of a disaster.

The Fundamentals of Realistic Prepping

When it comes to the fundamentals of preparedness, there are five critical areas, which are:

Mindset

Situational Awareness

Safety

Shelter

Sustenance.

We'll be covering each one of these in more depth in future posts but let's take a quick look at these topics.

Mindset

Your prepper's mindset is more important than any gear you can carry or supply you can stockpile. Briefly, your prepper's mindset encompasses the knowledge and skills that you have acquired to help you through a crisis. Educating yourself about the most likely disasters in your area and getting your family involved is also part of your mindset. Learning to make quick decisions by walking through the "what ifs" is key to your prepper's mindset. This is realistic prepping because it costs little to nothing to develop.

Situational Awareness

One of the most important factors in realistic prepping is your situational awareness. Being observant about the things going on around you, the people, and subtle shifts in mood can help you escape before a bad situation happens. It can also help you to avoid needless accidents because you've paid attention and side-stepped the danger. (We've all seen those videos of people so engrossed in their phones they walk right into a wall or a telephone pole.)

Safety

Safety encompasses a lot. It covers our personal safety when we're out and about, either alone or with our loved ones. It can also cover the basics of home security, letting people know where you're going to be and when you're expected to return and avoiding dangerous situations when possible. Safety also encompasses understanding and mitigating the risks of the most likely dangers in your area,