Principle
Situational awareness is straightforward in concept, but more challenging in its application. Simply put, it is being aware of what is going on around you. Noticing the people, behaviors, and geography of your location. Perhaps most important, though, is thinking about what you are seeing. When properly applied, situational awareness helps you notice both normal and abnormal events and objects.
Say you walk into a room you are familiar with – an office or living room. You notice that a piece of furniture has been moved. You should automatically think “Who moved this?” Or perhaps more importantly, “Why was this moved?”
The goal with good situational awareness is to be able to see, understand, and effectively act in our environment to reduce potential threats – or everyday inconveniences. The more we see, and think about what we see, the more effective we can be in life.
Good situational awareness helps you notice the car drifting out of their lane, the person getting ready to shoplift, or even someone walking down the street who isn’t paying attention and might knock over your kid. Like many aspects of personal security, situational awareness can alert you to danger and give you time to avoid or respond to a threat. That buffer it creates can also reduce the small inconveniences or stressors that occur within our daily life.
Practice
So how does it work? One of the most significant improvements we can make when training our situational awareness skills is to look away from our screens. The cell phone is one of the biggest distractions we have in our lives. When we are looking at it, we are completely oblivious to almost everything around us and are cut off from what is happening. The practice of putting down our phone while in public could have the greatest positive impact on our situational awareness.
Besides getting the screen out of our face, there are several more steps we can take. When entering a new place, take a brief moment to scan the area. Don’t make a straight line for your destination while being blind to everything on the way. The idea here isn’t to stand there until you have memorized everything, but to just take a mental note of what is happening. Particularly, is anything happening that seems off or abnormal? If not (which is usually the case) then that’s great. You also now have seen what the normal looks like and can spot the abnormal easier when it happens.
Another important step is to actually consider what you would do should an abnormal situation arise that requires a response. In many cases, this would just involve making note of the problem and steering clear of it. Or perhaps you would need to leave the area if you perceive a danger or threat. It is good to think about how you would exit a place should you need to – preferably by more than one route.
Read more about the importance of knowing your exits HERE
Finally, good situational awareness should also involve making note of points of interest that could be beneficial for us. Perhaps noting where an AED is located, or remembering where the last ATM, gas station, or restroom was. Situational awareness is not just about looking for criminals or major security threats. It is also about taking care of ourselves and our loved ones. It is about taking charge of our lives and making things a little bit easier.
