In the Walking Dead, episode 4 (Vatos), the crew that goes back into the city has to come up with a way to grab the cache of guns that Rick left in the middle of the street.  At one point, Glenn comes up with the plan. Impressed, Dylan asks him what he used to do for a living.  Glenn responds that he was a pizza delivery guy.

A pizza delivery guy comes up with the plan?

The point is that you have skills that you don’t realize you have!  Or worse, you don’t recognize that they are skills that are valuable to you.

But, skills won’t do you any good if you don’t have the mental capacity to act with them in a time of crisis.  One of the ways you build your mental capacity is to mentally rehearse situations.  Brain research shows that this is a very valuable exercise.

In the web article entitled “Head Games: The Use of Mental Rehearsal to Improve Performance,” Dr. Scott Williams, of Raj Soin College of Business, Wright University, says, “Mental rehearsal of performances is an excellent way to support skill development.”  He continues, “Mental rehearsal involves imagined, mental practice of performing a task as opposed to actual practice.  That is, when engaging in mental rehearsal, one imagines performing without having to actually do anything.”

Dr. Williams does note that there needs to be some skill attainment to effectively do this.  You can’t imagine yourself a 5th degree Black Belt and have never taken Karate in your life!

Remember images of the Winter Olympics when they show skiers who close their eyes and imagine themselves taking the turns, zigging and zagging coming down the hill.  Or imagine the dancer who has to learn a long choreographed dance and goes through it in his/her head.  This type of mental rehearsal helps them perform.

So, identifying your skills and taking time to rehearse your abilities will help you fight off the zombies!  Again, you have to have some kind of skill attainment.  But who doesn’t know how to swing a bat or cut a zombies head off with a sword?

Mentally rehearsing fighting off zombies would have helped wife beater man, who gets eaten in the tent (in episode 4)!  He had no problem beating his wife in plain sight.  But the idiot froze when the zombie shows up at his tent door.  Coming face to face with a hungry zombie should be the first thing you imagine so that you can survive the apocalypse!