The art of survival exists in both combat and on the daily. Regardless of motive, it demands a strict mindset, indicative of great warriors and influential thinkers.
“Every battle is won before it is fought.” – Sun Tzu
The ‘psychological ethos’ to mentally fight for your life is in all of us, but it needs to be developed. The survival mindset is critical in life and death, whether instinctual or trained.
A survival, or what I describe as a warrior mindset, is mental ammunition based on confidence and self-satisfaction, which trump your defensive and tactical skills.
Your training is invaluable without the will to live. Your survival mindset is cerebral readiness for anything, any time, and lacking anything but a relentless grit and fortitude will only get you killed.
What makes a survival mindset colossal is the power it carries. For the most part, it affects how you collect and process information.
It sustains your knowledge and perception of the world and in its core lies in your character and integrity. The survival mindset is actualizing that you can do something and have a fierce, and ruthless will to fight for it.
Krav Maga exposes you to acute stress with power drills for the psyche and the brain. Remember, your brain is your most lethal weapon – wise to it or not, all physical actions are set up in the mind.
So, for the purpose of this blog, here are 7 tips for developing your survival mindset to prepare you for the most barbaric fight of your life.
Immediate access: Take your life into your own hands with the Survival Package!
Tip 1: Master Flexibility
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” – Mike Tyson
In self-defense, mastering flexibility demands you can shift your strategies and techniques in response to new information and circumstances. Any survival scenario depends on your capacity to adapt and change your plan instantly. It pertains to what’s transpiring in the natural environment, not predisposed notions about what should ensue.
Self-defense is not just a physical fight for your life; mental agility is also an intense component. Surprises are lethal amid a violent attack, so having that adaptive edge is vital.
Tip 2: Master Strategy
When developing a survival mindset, it’s critical to learn to visualize and prepare for threats or danger and deftly maneuver out of the way. It typically requires assessing your strategy and on-the-spot to ensure your survival.
Your self-defense instruction is indicative of various drills and scenarios that could arise on the daily – and this is when and how it comes into play. Learning to produce the most effective techniques on-demand is an essential practice to stay in control and alive.
Tip 3: Master Determination
Krav Maga forces you to go beyond your level of comfort – physically, mentally, and emotionally, all in the name of survival. It’s about crushing self-doubt and instilling absolute resilience not to give up. This may demand utilizing your fear to take risks to protect yourself and others – your family and loved ones.
Although Krav Maga’s instruction emphasizes using the minimum force necessary to neutralize a threat, it also trains you for the point of no return, with the most potent strikes to survive, which requires master determination.
As a mighty component of your survival mindset, your determination and bravery will be the force that keeps you kicking, punching, blocking, clawing, and hammering until the end. It will induce you to be merciless and aggressive to defend and strike with all your strength and vigor.
Tip 4: Master Confidence
“Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.” – Bruce Lee
Mental toughness is advantageous in a violent scenario because you won’t be intimidated. So, if your attacker is armed with a knife or other edged weapon, you will trust in your skillset to save you. Of course, part of this gain is to only expect the unanticipated and never underestimate any attacker.
Simultaneously, you must be cautious and secure. Stress drills train you to assess violent scenarios as they arise quickly, but everything is possible, and nothing is guaranteed. Regardless, Krav Maga training fuses the best responses into your brain’s memory. The more you practice – the better your reaction time and chance of survival.
BLOG: Cognitive Mindset: Eliminating the Doubt for Survival
Tip 5: Master Focus
Your survival mindset thrives on clarity. It allows you the skills to think clearly, and quickly react in the face of a violent attack. By practicing your self-defense techniques – Krav Maga or any martial art or discipline, you will be fine-tuning your concentration skills.
Your self-defense techniques, pressure training, stress drills, and physical conditioning combine with mental preparation to heighten your chances of keeping cool in alarming scenarios. Additionally, it’s an instruction in breathing techniques and mental exercises that plays a factor in helping you master focus.
Krav Maga’s principle relies on remaining calm in high-stress situations, which is essential to developing your survival mindset.
Tip 6: Master Physical Dexterity
Your survival mindset involves being ready for action, so being physically fit is fundamental. Regular exercise builds strength, agility, and endurance, but it’s critical to have the power to sustain the fight and survive the enemy.
A stronger fighter will always be better, and explosive power is decisive. You will also require full-body workouts, weight, and cardiovascular training.
In addition, physical preparedness is the groundwork for your self-defense and martial arts skills training. Sparring, striking targets, kicking, jabbing, blocking, and fighting off a violent, frenzied attacker takes fierce brawn – so you need to be built for it.
BLOG: Self-Defense Fight or Flight: It’s Basic Instinct
Tip 7: Master Situational Awareness
Instead of leading with situational awareness (because it’s such an integral part of our blogs), I decided to ‘throw you something unexpected’ and end with it. Being aware of your surroundings instinctively – scanning your environment and identifying possible threats, hazards, or danger is how this superpower is instilled and launched, and it’s always your first line of defense.
Situational awareness necessitates you being vigilant and informed. The aim is to be prepared for extreme circumstances, have a plan and exit strategy, and never let your guard down.
When assessing people and events or circumstances around you, you must put yourself in a ‘readiness’ mode to avoid weakening, and falling in to a state of panic. Your judgment will determine one of four states of attention and perceived danger – unaware, aware, alert, and alarmed, and learning to control your position creates immediate, life-saving options in any scenario.
Your survival mindset thrives on your ability to master situational awareness – it’s precious time to think and recognize not just a threat – but the circumstances and nature forging it so you are prepared to act.
“Train your awareness, like you would for a fight”
– Nick Drossos
It’s critical to remember that in a violent life-or-death scenario, you are your only limit. You always want to become the aggressor when attacked, not the victim, and it begins with a survival mindset.
There are no rules when fighting for your life, as these hard-core skills are about defending and surviving the most violent confrontations, but you must be mentally prepared never to give up.
It’s also about understanding and believing that you are a worthy human who deserves to be protected. Your self-worth profoundly affects your self-defense mindset and, consequently, your survival.
Realizing your importance and stature takes practice but also precedence. But it’s no easy feat. The number of events in your life that could influence your personal and moral adequacy is limitless.
If your target is to develop your warrior mindset, then realizing you are worth defending is at the pinnacle of this cognitive power, and what’s more – it’s your duty.
Training your survival mindset is perpetual and demands brainpower and patience. You can also train your mental resilience through mental exercises such as meditation and mindfulness techniques.In my self-defense instruction, I stress how optimal it is to eliminate the need for doubt to survive. Giving up only leads to a deadly descent.
Explore my Krav Maga and renowned self-defense instruction now to begin mastering your survival mindset. Developing your cognitive attitude and behaviourism is an ongoing practice.
The Survival Package is a dynamic experience and an epic plan to start your hard-core training. It includes hand-to-hand combat and weapon training and combines my top 3 courses! Get ready to survive!
Distinguished as one of the most prized self-defense experts in the world and founder of Nick Drossos Defensive Tactics combining a plethora of practical self- techniques, ranging from civilians to law enforcements.
Nick empowers his pupils with high-caliber skills that include awareness training, subjective assessments of violence, weapon defense, stress drills, and real-life scenario training. Nick’s self-defense instruction, fitness intelligence, and raw life experience impeccably connect in his renowned YouTube channel to ‘empower personal protection’ in both mind and body.