Carryconcealed.net

The Ultimate Decision

This is the second article in the series and part 1 of Decision Making. In this first part "Matching Awareness to Reality" will be covered.

So you have completed your application, you have taken your 4 or 6 hour class; you have bought a gun and a holster. You are now cool; you can carry a firearm anywhere you go. The question to ask is WHY. You have already accomplished the WHAT, now we will look into the HOW and WHY and the consequences of that decision.

Why did you get a CCW? To provide protection for yourself? Your family? How about, because you can. These are all valid reasons but this decision has just changed your life forever. You now have the ability to take a human life in a split second. Are you prepared to do just that?

Understanding that the ultimate decision may cost you your house, wealth, family security and maybe your freedom. The ultimate decision is not like any other decision you will ever make. It is not a decision like "What will I to wear to work?" or "Where shall I go to lunch?" A normal cognitive decision can take several minutes, an hour, maybe longer to make. The Ultimate Decision will take less than 2 seconds, will come from your subconscious, will be violent, bloody, chaotic, stressful and will have lasting impacts if you survive.

Decision making

Each individual makes decisions differently. Decisions are based on your perception of reality (awareness), experience and training. To become prepared, it is your responsibility to increase your skills to build awareness and to add skills through experience and training.

Building awareness is complex but experience has demonstrated to us that skills can be developed to increase your ability to build situational awareness. Situational awareness is based on your ability to gather information and recognize the impact that this information may have.

Under stress people react differently than normal and your ability to gather information may shut down, start to filter incoming info or dwell on a certain part of the information. Tunnel vision, denial and not listening are examples of shutting down information gathering ability.

Your amount of experience, described as memory slides, is very important. To develop memory slides emotion must be present. This is why vivid memories are available of events like 911, combat, personal tragedies, weddings, birth of a child or maybe your first car. When emotion is involved memories stick in the subconscious to be used when you are stressed and having to make a critical decision. This is called Recognition Primed Decision Making.

What does this have to do with concealed carry?

To prepare yourself for making this ultimate decision without hesitation you should strive to build up your availability of memory slides. Since most of us don't have to make these types of decision on a regular basis the only other way to build these slides is through training.

More memory slides in your slide tray increases your ability to match your awareness to reality. The closer your awareness matches reality the more accurate decision you will be able to make when under stress.

The decision making cycle is the same for everything you do. You make thousands of decisions a day. Normally all of your day to day decisions are conscious decisions.

The decision cycle is:

• You perceive a situation. You try and understand it by gathering information. This is situational awareness, your ability to try and match reality.
• You will search your memory for an experience or training that matches your perception of what is happening. This is where a more experienced or a person with more training has the edge.
• Your experience and training will determine your options. There may be several or there may be none.
• During a critical situation time will be the determining factor to the outcome. The action you take or don't take will influence the outcome of the situation but the decision making cycle will continue as new or different information is gathered and your situational awareness changes.
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The difference in making a day to day decision or the decision to use lethal force is that the lethal force decision is time sensitive. The critical decision comes from your subconscious and must take place in seconds or your ability to prevail will rapidly decrease.

 

Mission Centered Solutions, Franktown Co

Remember, emotion is the glue that makes memory stick!

To build memory slides through training emotion must be present.

Trigger time is important to build your fundamental skills but advance training skills must have a purpose and must include emotion. All of the popular advanced pistol training courses available include emotion. This is usually through the stress imposed during drills. Also most people provide their own stress through fear! Fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake, fear of asking a stupid question or the fear of dropping your weapon.

As you deal with these fears you will free yourself up to experience the real reason for emotion based training:

TO BUILD MEMORY SLIDES SO THAT YOU CAN INCREASE YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS WHICH WILL ALLOW YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS THAT WILL BE ACCURATE, APPROPRIATE AND IN TIME TO MEET THE THREAT.

About the Author:

Any comments or questions can be directed to the author at DAN@carryconcealed.net. Dan Battreall International Training and Consulting specializes in training US and international high-risk organizations in the art of leadership, human factors and decision making. Dan has also been on the training staff at Mission Centered Solutions, Franktown Co. since 2000. MCS works with high-risk organizations in creating Operational Synergy by developing skills in leadership, decision making under stress and rapid teambuilding. Dan lives with his wife of 36 years in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada in California.