Habits are a great tool when it comes to achieving long-term goals. They allow you to continue moving forward without putting a lot of conscious thought into it. If you want to get in better physical condition, developing a habit of daily exercise will help you get there.
In fact, if you commit to the habit for a while, it can feel uncomfortable if you don’t engage in it. For example, let’s say you start exercising every morning. About six months later, something comes up that pulls you out of your daily routine, and you can’t get that exercise in. You might feel a little discombobulated all day long as a result.
Establishing Positive Habits
Creating habits with a prepper mindset or perspective will absolutely help keep you in a better position to handle emergencies. Here are a few examples of what I mean.
Filling the Tank
Once you get started with this, it’s fairly easy to keep up with it. That’s especially true if you have a fairly consistent daily commute. Make it a habit not to let your gas tank fall below half. Once it hits that halfway mark, fill it up.
We don’t get to choose when a crisis will strike, nor the form it might take. If you have a sudden need to drive somewhere, such as when a family member needs to go to the hospital, you don’t want to have to stop for fuel along the way.
As a practical matter, you’re not spending any more money filling your tank at halfway than when you otherwise would. You might be stopping for gas more frequently, but unless you drive quite a bit on a daily basis, it’s probably adding maybe one extra stop a week.
Staging Gear
Let’s say your smoke alarm wakes you up in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it isn’t because your teenager forgot a pizza in the oven. This is a real emergency, and you need to evacuate immediately. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
In this situation, what would you grab? Would you be able to find what you need quickly? I’ve read that because of all of the synthetic materials in homes today, you may have just a few minutes to escape before things get truly ugly.
It’s a good idea to get into the habit of staging quick grab items each night before you go to bed. This isn’t nearly as complicated or involved as it might sound. As an example, take your cell phone, keys, and wallet and put them together on your nightstand or dresser. You want them in the same place every night, so there’s no fumbling around trying to locate them. You also want them within easy reach, as you might not be able to run to the other end of the house to retrieve them.
Along these same lines, keep footwear of some sort near the bed, so you can slip them on quickly. Even slippers are better than bare feet. A robe, or sweatpants and a hoodie, might also be wise if you tend to sleep without wearing much of anything.
Escape Routes
We’ve talked before about establishing points of egress. The basic idea is to get into the habit of scoping out where you can go in an emergency when you’re out in public. For example, figuring out different ways to evacuate a restaurant, should an active shooter situation develop. This is one behavior that doesn’t take too long to get ingrained once you start doing it.
