This topic is a response to threads I’ve read over the years here on ATS. One of the most common topics I’ve seen is what I should do to prepare for SHTF, what steps should I take for SHTF, most important what will SHTF be. Another is this; I am prepared to go live in the woods and be John Rambo and live off what I kill. Is this realistic, I am very skeptical of the realistic possibilities of this, sounds like a great way to get killed.
I have come to many conclusions some I will share with you today, first and foremost is what SHTF scenario to prepare for.
IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER

My answer to that question has become very simple and yet I think complex, you must prepare for failure. I know that sounds so simple and even stupid, “well duh of course I have to prepare for failure its SHTF stupid”. I hear that let me explain what I mean by Prepare for Failure.

Prepare for Failure – YOU personally must prepare for YOUR plan to include its eventual and inevitable failure. Failure because circumstance has overwhelmed your plan or the situation has changed, or worst yet you have less people to accomplish your plan. An unforeseen event has made part of your plan untenable, maybe destroying some of your caches or rendering equipment useless.

How To Prepare For Failure – You must be able to adapt, you must have made mental preparations in your mind, going over situation after situation and adapting what you can to your personal situation. Examination of escape routes (more than 2) done over time before SHTF, caches placed in multiple locations if possible on your routes, you must have a plan for escape. Have more than one place to escape to, living in the woods is no way to live, find groups of like minded people, befriend them and discuss this topic. Learn multiple useful trades carpentry for one, failure is greatly limited when one has multiple skills and knowledge.
Supplys that fit your needs, things that have multiple uses in multiple envirenments, food you eat today to reduce overall costs, items that fit you and your area, dont forget the weather if you live up north like me.

Bugging In - Have a plan for SHTF that involves Bugging In, not just bugging out, make preparations accordingly for bugging in. This is usually the cheapest way to prepare for a SHTF situation; however it is vitally important that you prepare for its inevitable failure as well if civilization is not restored.

Get Out Of The Inner Cities – Just what it says, when there is a SHTF, just being outside of the inner cities decreases some of the things that will happen to you and your family. There will be no escape from it conceivably, so being out of the cities and suburbs all together into small towns and villages would be an even better way to reduce the amount of things that could go wrong. That would also make it more likely to find like minded people who you would be able to work with, reducing even more the problems. This might be the best way I can think of to avoid the worst possibilities of SHTF, to many supply lines, once cut chaos ensues, than it’s just a snowball that kills.

Inevitable Failure – Everything fails, this is just a fact of life, and it doesn’t matter if that failure is a death, structural, electronic, or even societies. Failure is indeed inevitable we have come to call it change in its best circumstance and failure in its worst, but what is sure is that there will be change. I have heard it put another way, the best plan doesn’t survive first contact, the ability to adapt, maybe more important the WILLINGNESS to adapt is the key to winning, surviving and prospering. Just survival isn’t enough, thriving and prospering with the possibility for a future better than our past is what most human’s desire, it has been our ability to adapt when things go wrong that has allowed us to make it here. Will you be able to adapt as well as your ancestors did or will you be another statistic because you had your plan and stuck with it, until it killed you and didn’t adapt.

Prepare For Failure!

Star for you.
As a survival instructor I know what you say is true.
Failure will be more common than success in a real survival situation.
Whether it's trying to build a fire in the rain, make shelter than won't leak or find enough to eat you will fail more often than you succeed.
How to compensate?:
Learn from your mistakes.
Increase your awareness of your surroundings.
Be creative and adapt to new circumstances as they arrive.
Have faith you will succeed and never give up.
Of course the more knowledge you have and the more you have practiced various skills the less you will fail.

Give today's norm of instant gratification many will give up easily which is a recipe for disaster.
As my dad used to say people will need all the "stick-to-itiveness" they can muster.

yes i agree but when the s#1t does hit the fan,think about how many sheeple will fail miserably and parish,leaving a lot more room for us like minded people to survive,fail,adapt,learn,and carry on living. whatever that life will be.
i too have survival training,and i can make fire in the rain and shelter,as the other person posted.i also have many practical skills that would help with multiple scenarios. i'm teaching my children this too.
the most important survival thing to know is basic medical knowledge.
knowledge of herbs and spices is crucial. (e.g. the pith of the white willow tree is where they got asprim [asa] from)
you cant always depend on 'man made' survival supplies. alot of those 'kits' you can buy are a joke,and you would be dead in less than a week!
how many regular people know how to make a lean to? or a snow cave that doesnt collapse on you when you sleep? or how to make lamp oil out of the animal you just killed for food! ha,most people dont even know how to skin an animal,never mind how to make clothing out of the pelt.
well like i said,when all the regular people are struggleing,i can say 'i told you so'! but then my heart would take over and i would try to help them
good post friend
peace

Good advice. We cannot anticipate everything that may happen, we can only try to get away from crowded areas (as I have done), and try to have lots of extra supplies. Beyond that, it is all about being light on one's feet, adaptable, and intelligent enough to create what you need with what you find.

Yep. You don't prepare for what you can think of. You prepare for what you can't.

OP I like your post, I agree with it but I dislike using the word failure. People tend to get depressed if they think they have failed. I know that I would hit rock bottom, fall on my butt, have situations I never dreamed of with no clue how to climb out but

This is the amazing thing about humans is our ablity to adapt. I am getting a bit on in my years so I notice I have a harder time "going with the flow" than I did when I was younger. But at the same time I am also not as stuborn as when I was younger and see when it will benfit to change.

Good points all.

When I see those type of threads it takes a lot of will power not to just tell them
If you have to ask its too late for you
Few of us have spent a lifetime slowly subtlety acquiring the skills and knowlege through our chosen lifestyle and activitys, as we've grown older we've seen what's happened
We see what's happening, and we have our suspicions of what's going to happen
And we see that camping in the middle of nowhere for weeks on end with nothing but a tarp living off the beach in a surfers paradise has given us skills
Making bows and arrows as a kid
Building forts and tree houses
Improvising ignition
Some of us never grew up, expand and refined what we did
Now I'm not really a prepper but I have multiple bug out options availible
But at the end of the day as long as I survive the 'event' and any fallout from that i'd survive the aftermath

Originally posted by Neocrusader
When I see those type of threads it takes a lot of will power not to just tell them
If you have to ask its too late for you

We've got probably ten years until Soylent Green, at the moment. I don't see nuclear war happening, personally...but then again, I never really have.

Now I'm not really a prepper but I have multiple bug out options availible
But at the end of the day as long as I survive the 'event' and any fallout from that i'd survive the aftermath

Every Survivalist strategy in existence, ultimately relies on Nature surviving. If the ecosystem doesn't make it, then neither will we.

One of the ways I try to minimize the cost of failure is to ask myself beforehand, "What is the price of being wrong?"

I do this with my SHTF planning. I don't spend all the family's income on survival gear, but I do spend a portion of each paycheck. 90% of the stuff I buy will be used in the course of camping, hunting and fishing anyway. So my preps have a low utility cost if there never is "The" big crisis.

Likewise, I prep because I am aware of the price of being wrong, for the 85% who won't make any plans.

In a survival situation, this might affect the way you gather and store your firewood, if you have a limited supply of matches.

The poster who wrote the thread about his experience in northern Saskatchewan told about tracing giant arrows in the snow while he was gathering firewood, in case he became disoriented (being wrong) later that night....

Nature will not only survive, it barely knows we are here now, and would very rapidly cover our existance on this planet after a true SHTF no matter what we did, 100 years after a true SHTF time Earth would be Earth again and no sign we were ever here would survive.