Recently on the preparedness forums and Facebook groups, I’ve seen a lot of people struggling to begin preparing for their disaster of choice. And I think what this comes down to is setting reasons goals and expectations.
We live in what my teacher Matt calls a “microwave society”. This means that we want to take the shortest route to achieve a goal, which often causes trouble with our progress, and hampers our desire to continue. You’re probably wondering what the cure is, right?
I’m sad to say, I have no “one size fits all” treatment for this. I’m not an expert in psychosocial engineering or habit forming. All I can do is tell you what I’m doing to improve my own life.
First: Set a Goal
Pick a simple goal. For the person who sparked this post, I would say this: start with something small. Pick a topic, skill, or piece of equipment that you think would be useful. You’ve mentioned difficulty with using firearms, so clearly you have an interest in self protection. DON’T GIVE UP! Firearms are an excellent tool to help you defend your home, and I’m going to put links to some great resources to help you educate yourself on weapons.
My first goal would be to spend a week studying these resources and pick out the right tool for you.
Next, spend a week doing simple dry fire practice. Get familiar with your stance, the weight of the weapon, and the various features. Practice moving through your house safely. Build good, strong habits, before you ever pull the trigger.
Third, go ahead and hit the range! Remember, bigger isn’t always better, and if you find the recoil is absolutely unmanageable, change calibers and try again. Ultimately, all calibers can be managed with good training and understanding of the tool in hand, but it takes time!
So I told you I would link to some resources. I’m going to operate under the assumption that you’re using a rifle, so I’ll focus on that. Remember, everything is achievable with practice. I hope this helps encourage you to understand and train, and please, please don’t quit.
To help you figure out handguns, here’s Mike’s podcast on choosing a handgun:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fieldcraft-survival/id1187664795?i=1000380598357
To set up your rifle, here’s a good video from Lukas Botkin:
And Vigilance Elite:
And on mindset for carrying a weapon:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/primary-secondary-podcast/id1086341514?i=1000385159963
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