Your intuition is the best safeguard you have against danger. If you get the sense that something is wrong or doesn’t add up, do not ignore it. Your instincts exist to protect you – it is always better to be overcautious than to ignore warning signs that turned out to be legitimate.
At its most basic level, fear guides our fight or flight responses and heightens your senses and awareness. When it comes to safety, self-awareness is a valuable skill to possess. Knowing where you are, what you’re doing, and how you might respond in any given situation can help you avoid unsafe situations and remain vigilant in public places. Self-awareness simply refers to understanding your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, emotions, and tendencies. People with low self-awareness don’t realize how they are perceived by others and often lack the confidence to defend themselves when faced with difficult situations. To reduce your likelihood of becoming a victim of crime, you can improve your self-awareness by practicing these simple steps:
Don’t be the easy target. Criminals want an easy target; they’re looking for someone who won’t put up a fight. How you walk and how you dress both factor into whether criminals will consider you an easy mark. For example, practice walking fast and with a purpose. Walking in this way communicates that you are confident and aware. Keep your head up, back straight and look around you, not down at your phone. Second, always be sure to make eye contact. If someone is making you nervous, make eye contact with them, to tell them you are prepared and that you see them.
Know your surroundings. Do you know where you are and how safe your location is? When you aren’t familiar with your location, it’s easy to become lost and vulnerable. Especially when traveling to an unfamiliar location, do your research ahead of time. Is this area considered safe? Where are the nearest points of safety, such as a police station, hospital or large public spaces. Even if you are in a place that feels familiar or safe, it’s important that you know your surroundings in case of danger. Part of being self-aware is knowing your location, your resources, your exit points and your strategy, if something were to go wrong.
Take control of your preparedness. Although technology has increased the speed in which police officers respond to emergencies, the target response time for emergency responders is around nine minutes. This may not be quick enough to save you or those you love. Being self-aware means taking responsibility for your actions. This could mean taking a self-defense class, a boxing class or workplace violence training course. In our training programs, we help participants acknowledge that one critical option we all have in an emergency is to confront (secure, escape or confront). While it may not be the ideal option, learning what you can do to create distractions is critical, and can provide valuable time before help is on hand.
Speak Up: Report any situations immediately to your supervisor (while at the workplace) or to the person in charge (when out in the community): accidents, injuries, close calls, near misses, safety hazards or concerns, any suspicious persons, activity, or behavior. Even if there is not currently a dangerous situation or nobody got injured, if there are things that could lead to either of these, the person in charge should be made aware so that they can take the appropriate action steps.
Personal safety begins with an individual’s self-awareness– no one can defend against danger they couldn’t see coming. Take your safety seriously and it can help you, and those around you who matter most.