If you became lost in the back country, very sick or faced with another life threatening situation would you survive? Do you give up on all of your hopes of making it out alive or do you maintain your will to survive? We can truly never know what we would do if we were ever put in that kind of situation.
What we do know is that without having the right state-of-mind can be a matter of life or death. We have all heard amazing stories of people that have survived through extreme circumstances. People with very little survival skills beating the odds and surviving. There are also stories of people with survival training that succumbed to the elements and perished.
The will to survive is something that mentally and spiritually drives us to overcome death. To some this will comes naturally, while others struggle with it, but it is inherent in all of us. Our thoughts control our state of mind, positive thoughts allow us to move forward, but negative thoughts stop all momentum and hope.
The will to survive is motivated by thoughts of seeing your family again, the willingness to win or the unwillingness to accept failure. It’s natural for depression, even panic to set in when forced into a survival situation but the strong will soon recognize the situation and start positive thoughts of survival and a way to safety.
Allowing negative thoughts ruins moral and motivation. Often people will start blaming themselves for getting into a bad situation and soon they are filled with self-pity and little hope. To survive one needs to recognize these negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts.
By controlling your thoughts and stress levels to keep a positive outlook on the situation is the first step to surviving. For example, if you go in for a surgery with negative thoughts and a high stress level about the outcome you actually lower your chances for a successful recovery.
The power of a positive state-of-mind will greatly increase the outcome of any situation. We see this in sports, a team that has been behind the whole game can still win as long as the team maintains a constant state of positive thinking and confidence in their ability to win. But if the team loses moral and gives up hope they are destine to lose the game.
Having survival skills in a life threatening situation can help but without a strong will to survive the chances of a positive outcome are very low. Whatever motives you to keep pushing on and makes you want to live longer is your will to survive. Focus on it, and never give up!
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[...] We hate to think anything bad is going to happen but to become complacent that it is not a possibility is not realistic. Take some time and organize your gear and gather the other items you will need for your survival kit if a disaster strikes. Find a spot in your home to store non-perishable food and water. Emergency preparedness is about being prepared for the events we do not have control of and having the will to survive. [...]