Strategic Crisis Planning: 5 Steps That Work

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This episode came from a recent Mind4Survival listener survey, where I asked: What’s the one thing you need help with most right now in your preparedness?

One response stood out:

“Having a plan for when things actually HTF. Being prepared is one thing. Planning the steps to start with is another thing.”

That’s a good question because while many people focus on the obvious aspects of preparedness, such as gathering supplies, they haven’t thought through the steps they’d actually take if the wheels fall off.

Ask anyone who has worked/lived in some sort of high-stress, high-consequence world. They’ll tell you that, beyond having a mental and emotional meltdown due to the stress of a situation, not having a plan is probably the next most problematic lack of preparedness that turns a situation from bad to worse.

Moreover, it is often the people who have a plan that hold it together best when put to the test. That plan and the process of thinking it through to create the plan is what builds familiarity and confidence in dealing with the situation.

Can you say priming the OODA Loop?

And no, you don’t need to plan for every disaster under the sun. You just need a plan to act.

TL;DR: Building a realistic SHTF plan means prioritizing key elements, securing stability, and continually improving your position over time.

Strategic Planning Is Excellent Prepping

Planning is a key aspect of preparedness. It’s one way to refine the information and create options in your decision-making process. It’s often what separates a poor reaction from an effective response.

Strategic planning means:

• You’ve thought things through on a high level
• You’ve lined up options and backups
• You know what to do first and what to do if that fails

Prepping without effective planning is just guesswork. And that doesn’t cut it when things actually go sideways.

Start With the Situation—Not the Scenario

You don’t need to obsess over what happens. Earthquake. Cyberattack. Layoff. Medical emergency. Doesn’t matter.

What matters is that something happened—and you need to respond.

So don’t plan for the crisis. Plan for the decisions that follow:

• Do I stay or leave?
• Where is my family?
• What’s the next best move?

That’s the kind of plan that works. That gives you a working thought process for any disaster.

Step 1: Get Your Head Right

When something happens, take a few seconds to get your head right.

Don’t rush. Don’t flail.

Stop. Breathe. Think.

Where are you? Where is your family? What’s the immediate threat? What needs to happen to add time and space between you and your loved ones—and the threat? If you can’t put time and space between you and the threat, how do you eliminate the threat or manage its aftermath?

This is where the Success Formula comes into play: Mindset × Ability = Capability.

Mindset comes first. Always.

When you keep your head in the game, you make better decisions. Your ability, whether it’s gear, training, fitness, or communication, is only helpful if your mindset allows you to utilize it effectively.

Step 2: Secure What Matters Most

This is priority one. Your goal is to stabilize the situation.

• Get your people safe.
• Lock down your shelter.
• Handle any medical issues or other problems.
• Plug the leaks in your situation.

Start with my M4S fundamentals of preparedness philosophy: Mindset → Situational Awareness → Survival → Safety → Self.

Focus on that foundation. No heroics. No distractions. Just secure the basics and work your way through the fundamentals.

Rinse. Repeat.

Step 3: Expand Your Options

Once things are stable, it’s time to start thinking about what comes next. That’s where PACE planning comes in:

• Primary: Your go-to option.
• Alternate: Solid backup.
• Contingency: Not ideal, but it works.
• Emergency: Last-ditch effort.

You should have PACE plans for every aspect of your plan:

• Communications
• Shelter
• Movement (home → fallback, fallback → alt site)
• Medical help
• Reuniting your family

This applies whether you’re at home, at work, or out running errands. You can’t know where you’ll be when something happens. But you can know how to work the problem.

Step 4: Improve Your Situation

Once you’ve secured and stabilized, you start improving:

• Double-check your security features
• Reinforce your shelter
• Expand water, food, and power
• Bring in trusted help if needed
• Start building routine and rhythm back into your day

This is where many people stall—or fall apart. They relax, they let their guard down, and either stop planning and assessing or start spinning their wheels.

Improving your position means:

• Reducing risk
• Gaining options
• Building capability and comfort

Not luxury. Just making tomorrow better than yesterday.

Step 5: Repeat and Refine

Good planning is ongoing planning. It’s not a one-and-done type of thing. Now is it a checklist you downloaded five years ago.

It’s a process of evolution.

The situation changes, so you adjust. You learn something and apply it. You find a weakness and you work on it.

Every phase of your plan should be flexible:

• Your security strategies
• Your routes and rally points
• Communications
• Your support network

Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for functional. Then test it. Then improve it.

Over time, you’ll improve, improve, and improve.

It just takes effort, dedication, and a realistic perspective.

Your Plan Should Fit You

Your life isn’t like anyone else’s, and your plan shouldn’t be either. That’s why thinking at a high level, strategically, helps dial you in, while keeping you flexible and focused.

What works for a single guy in the city probably won’t work for a mom with three kids in the suburbs. Your plan needs to reflect:

• Your location
• Your responsibilities
• Capabilities
• Your goals

Using another person’s plan may provide a good framework, but it will never truly be yours. So modify and build one that does.

Start where you are. Use what you’ve got. Make it better as you go.

The Bottom Line

Preparedness is not about reacting to a disaster.

It’s about being ready to act.

Risk-based. Thought-based. Reality-based. Effective action-based.

Just a solid, personal plan—one that lets you stabilize fast, adapt to the unknown, and make life better no matter what hits the fan.

You can’t control everything. Just the next move.

Make sure you know what that move is.

Additional Resources

📌 Next StepsTake five minutes and map out your first moves if things go sideways tonight. Where would you go? Who do you need to reach? What backup do you already have—and what’s missing? Nothing detailed. Off the top of your head. Write down three parts of your plans that can be improved, and share them in the comments so others can learn from your approach.