![]() ![]() The best way to take a punch from a UFC fighter and to survive a hurricane are the same: “ Don’t be there when it hits.” “…It’s a matter of looking at yourself and assessing your own abilities and where you are mentally, and then realizing that it’s better to turn back and get a chance to do it again than to go for it and not come back at all.” We are a society of high achievers, but in the wilderness, such motivation can be deadly… What do we see when we look at people who survive life and death situations? Many of them were smart enough to bail early. Many of you might be a little confused right now: “A secret to resilience is quitting? That doesn’t make any sense.” Might there be a simple way to sidestep all these problems? Yeah. So you know you’re in trouble but you’re keeping your cool. (For methods Navy SEALS, astronauts and the samurai use to keep calm under pressure, click here.) For this reason they don’t usually take themselves too seriously and are therefore hard to threaten.” Resilient people acknowledge difficult situations, keep calm and evaluate things rationally so they can make a plan and act.Īl Siebert, in his book The Survivor Personality, writes that “The best survivors spend almost no time, especially in emergencies, getting upset about what has been lost, or feeling distressed about things going badly…. Rash decision making rarely delivers optimal results in everyday life either. Now just a brief second of clear thinking tells you this is a very bad idea while diving - but when you panic, you can’t think clearly. ![]() When you’re having trouble breathing what’s more natural than to clear an obstruction from your mouth? But it was the wrong response under the special, non-natural, circumstances of scuba diving. The victims had followed an emotional response that was in general a good one for the organism, to get air. That led to an overpowering impulse to uncover the mouth and nose. It took a long time for researchers to figure out what was going on.” It appears that certain people suffer an intense feeling of suffocation when their mouths are covered. “Only they had pulled the regulators out of their mouths and drowned. Ephimia Morphew, a psychologist and founder of the Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments, told me of a series of accidents she’d been studying in which scuba divers were found dead with air in their tanks and perfectly functional regulators. How is this possible? Something goes wrong, they panic, and instinctively pull the regulator out of their mouth. Sometimes when SCUBA divers drown they still have air in their oxygen tanks. What’s the next thing the most resilient people do? Okay, like they say in AA, you admitted you have a problem. (For more on how a little negativity can make you happier, click here.) Nobody is saying paranoia is good but research shows a little worrying is correlated with living a longer life. When you know you’re in trouble you can act. When you stay oblivious or live in denial, things get worse - often in a hurry. What’s that thing doctors say when they’re able to successfully treat a medical problem? “Good thing we caught it early.” They immediately begin to recognize, acknowledge, and even accept the reality of their situation… They move through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance very rapidly. Via Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why: They move through those “stages of grief” from denial to acceptance faster: What do people who survive life-threatening situations have in common? ![]() Sounds obvious but we’ve all been in denial at one point or another. The first thing to do when facing difficulty is to make sure you recognize it as soon as possible. “Yeah, the argument was getting a little heated but I didn’t think he was going to hit me.” “The company already had two rounds of layoffs this year but I never thought they would let me go.” Whether it’s dealing with unemployment, a difficult job, or personal tragedies, here are insights that can help. Turns out surviving the most dangerous situations has some good lessons we can use to learn how to be resilient in everyday life. When life and death is on the line, what do the winners do that the losers don’t? ![]()
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