Well, after last evening’s inter­view with Doc­tor Prep­per, I thought I would write up a few thoughts on plan­ning for your pre­pared­ness goals.  This will prob­a­bly appeal to novice prep­pers, but it got me think­ing about a few points of dis­cus­sion around how to get the ball rolling and keep your head on straight at the same time.

1. Have the deter­mi­na­tion to start and con­tin­ue prep­ping.  By this I mean, if you hon­est­ly believe it is going to be part of your lifestyle and you are not afraid of learn­ing or admit­ting there is a lot to learn while you are get­ting start­ed, you can get your fam­i­ly pre­pared to sur­vive almost any sit­u­a­tion.
2. Stay phys­i­cal­ly fit (if you can).  It’s my opin­ion that your health is all you have.  Stay­ing fit as best you can will help you dur­ing an emer­gency.  It’s no secret that being phys­i­cal­ly active and fit helps you to deal with stress more effec­tive­ly.  It will also help you to work through any oth­er phys­i­cal sit­u­a­tions you find your­self in if you find your­self in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion.
3. Start a pre­pared­ness bud­get.  Yes, a bud­get.  When I first start­ed prep­ping I bought every­thing.  I thought I researched things, but hon­est­ly many of my pur­chas­es were emo­tion­al pur­chas­es vs. intel­lec­tu­al­ly thought out pur­chase deci­sions.  I wast­ed a lot of mon­ey, and wast­ed it quick­ly.  Bud­get­ing will help you think though your deci­sions, and the time frames in which to make them more intel­li­gent­ly.
4. Cre­ate an action plan, or plans.  Plan, plan, plan, and doc­u­ment your plans to be dis­trib­uted to your fam­i­ly or group so that in a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion they know what to do if they have a brain cramp due to the stress.  See this post about a per­son­al prepardess plan­ning book­let for your fam­i­ly
5. Build a Bug Out Bag.  Build your 72 hour bag with the basics you need based on your skill lev­el as well as being able to sat­is­fy the needs of your fam­i­ly.  Make sure you cov­er the fol­low­ing: Fire/Energy/Power, Shel­ter, Food/Water, Signaling/Communications, and Secu­ri­ty.
6. Cre­ate a long term sur­vival plan.  What if you had to bug in or bug out for a long peri­od of time?  What’s a long peri­od of time?  Let’s call it two weeks to a year.  What would you do?
7. Get trained.  Get train­ing in areas where you are not pro­fi­cient.  You don’t have to become an expert, but be able to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion or issue when it aris­es.  An area or two to con­sid­er:
   1. Ham Radio Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
   2. Self Defense
   3. First Aid
   4. Nav­i­ga­tion
   5. etc…
8. Prac­tice the skills you learned when trained.  Enough said.
9. Remain Hum­ble.
   1. About your preps
   2. About what you know
   3. About where you are going if you need to bug out.
   4. About what you have if you bug in.
10. Learn to height­en your state of aware­ness.  Google “Jeff Coop­er, Coop­er Codes” and get an under­stand­ing of who Jeff Coop­er was and what the Coop­er Codes were designed for and make them part of your life and lifestyle.  I ass­es every room I walk into.  I don’t stop and count the peo­ple, but just take note of the peo­ple, demeanor, etc. very quick­ly and note any­thing or any­one that might be out of place…  Use the Coop­er Codes to help you ass­es the “sit­u­a­tion” for bug­ging in or bug­ging out.