Situational Awareness - Easy Tips To Avoid Danger

Instead of looking at our smartphones — checking email, texting friends, or posting pictures to Instagram, we should be noticing our environment. Situational awareness is a huge deterrent to criminal activity and it could save your life. ​

Try to answer the following questions:

• The last time you stopped for gas, how many other cars were getting gas?
• What color is your co-workers car? What about the shirt they wore today?
• How many people were waiting behind you at the checkout?
• How many exits are in your favorite restaurant?
• What time does your neighbor leave and arrive home each day?
• Were there any unusual characters or cars parked along your street this morning before you left for work?

Although, these questions are for the most part trivial, very few people would be able to answer these questions without applying considerable guess work.  The truth is, we are so used to the environment around us that we rarely notice when something does change. This normalcy creates a lack of situational awareness and this kind of thinking is precisely what leads many people to be taken advantage of. 

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Instead of looking at our smartphones — checking email, texting friends, or posting pictures to Instagram, we should be noticing our environment. Situational awareness is a huge deterrent to criminal activity and it could save your life. 

In fact, noticing what is going on around you is a common practice of law enforcement, military, security and self defense experts. My father, for years always sat facing the door when we went out to dine at a restaurant, he never really discussed it, it was just a practice that he developed while in the military. His situational awareness is something that I myself have developed over time, especially considering the uncertain times that we are living in today. 

So what is situational awareness? Situational awareness is nothing more than being aware of what is around you and what the people or things around you are doing. It is being so aware of your surroundings that when something changes, you notice it. It’s knowing what to expect, so that the unexpected stands out. More than anything, it’s seeing things that could be a threat, and analyzing that threat before it can manifest.
Without situational awareness, you could fall victim to a mugging, get carjacked, or be the victim of some type of senseless crime.

You can ask any soldier or law enforcement officer and they will tell you, situational awareness is vita​l to survival whether on the battle field, on the streets or in everyday life. Although, this type of thinking goes totally against our normal way of thinking it is something that can be learned and improved upon. 

What can we do, to make ourselves more aware of our surroundings, than we are today?
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Simply saying that we are going to become more aware will not be enough to change things. So we will need to develop some techniques that will get us into the habit of noticing our surroundings more. 

• Make a habit of knowing how many people are in a room with you, if you are in a large area or out shopping or dining, know approximately how many people are within 50 feet of you.
• On your way to work each day, do an inventory of vehicles that pass you by. How many trucks, how many cars, how many transport vehicles. Make a game out of it, when you reach your destination figure out which one had the highest total. (If trucks win, treat yourself to a special dessert during lunch)
• In your neighborhood, know which cars are parked in what driveway, if you see a different vehicle, make a mental note.
• Look for patterns within your own neighborhood, who arrives when, who departs when, what time does the mailman arrive, doing so will slowly train your mind to notice anything out of the ordinary. 
• The next time you are in a restaurant, room or building, identify the exits, then ask yourself, which exit would be the fastest exit, which would be the most crowded exit in an emergency, is there an alternative way out of the room without using the exits? 
• The next time you go shopping or out to the mall, do an assessment on the people around you. Evaluate them and assign them a threat assessment number from 1 to 10, with one being no threat at all and 10 being a dangerous threat. Naturally, when you do this, it is best to track the ones with the highest rating. This is a great method to teach yourself to become more aware of your surroundings.

We would love to here any further tips that you might have, please feel free to share them in the comments section.

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