Are You Tough, Mentally?

I used to hang with a nice married couple.  They are good friends, but they moved away.  Fortunately, this was after they became my shooting students, and went on to become teachers, themselves.

I remember them telling me back-in-the-day that years before we became acquainted, they’d gone to a gun show.  And some vendor therein had a sales technique predicting an apocalypse.  His sales spiel was:

When the s*** comes down, you will need ‘X’!

Tactical Intelligence addresses something that most who read this and similar blogs already know:

“The more you sweat in times of peace, the less you’ll bleed in times of war.”

and

If there’s one thing though that we rarely hear about in the prepper circles that I feel is equally as important, it’s building up our mental toughness.

Self-defense oriented folks already are familiar with such precepts:  Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Personal Defense is all about our attitude.

So what are some things that you can do to build mental toughness?

• If you have a flight of stairs in your home, any time you walk down them, go on all fours (great shoulder and chest workout). Or when going up, hop up each step.

• Do a number of pushups or pullups (install a pull-up bar in the doorway) before entering or leaving certain rooms of the house.

• Go without food or water for 24 hours

• When on errands, park your car further out so you have to walk farther.

• When showering, finish the last portion of it with a blast of cold water.

• When watching TV, do pushups/situps during the commercial breaks.

• Try to do as many activities as possible with your non-dominant hand.

• If you’re on the shy side, go out of your way to talk to 3 new people a day and learn something about each of them, or…

• …try singing at the top of your lungs when someone is pulled up next to you at a stop light.

• Wake up an hour earlier than you’re used to.

• When getting your mail in the middle of winter, go out in some shorts and a t-shirt.

• On those nights when you’re exhausted and just want to go to bed, force yourself to clean or do the dishes for 10 minutes.

Practicing a snap kick for 1000 repetitions, or a pistol presentation 1000 times may help you with you physical self – your muscle memory.  But, readiness is not just about the physical.

You should go and read the whole article at the link above, and remember, prepping isn’t just how many guns or rounds-of-ammo or bandages or water filters you have.  What you do with those tools is entirely dependent on your attitude.

For when the s*** comes down…

h/t Karmann & Stan