I have a relevant story. I was once hiking down a mountain, and near the top I slipped and fell on a rock, cutting my knee to the bone. When I saw it, I calmly called out to the person I was hiking with to get gauze pads, without any panicking or shouting. He helped, and I was able to make it down on my own.
The way I did it was by looking at the situation and seeing what had to be done, then figuring out the best way to do it. I’m not sure if this was normal, but it was an immediate reaction for me.
Moral: Search for goals than find an optimal path to achieve them, even in stressful situations. The way to do this is by drilling a procedure in your head until you can do it by instinct. Not specifics, as you can’t plan for things like nails in your shoes. But you can plan general emergencies procedures, like remove the puncture, clean the wound, and apply pressure.
I had a similar experience after getting hit by a car while crossing the street. A friend who saw me and came running over actually thought I was in shock or something, because he couldn’t believe that I was taking it so calmly. The adrenalin also helped, of course—I didn’t feel any pain at all until nearly half an hour later. The only emotional reaction I can remember was extreme annoyance at the breaking of my glasses.
Oddly enough, I fall into the same category as the post author. I don’t think I’m very good at reacting swiftly, and I absorb information and handle that sort of testing very well. But I do generally manage to keep my head. I suspect this is a pretty recent development, which may affect my perception of the matter.
I’ve found one useful heuristic. If I periodically remind myself to keep cool and reevaluate the current situation, I generally get good results. Slow-reaction types tend to quickly make a bunch of assumptions when thrust into a situation calling for swift action, and weeding out the erroneous ones is very helpful.
I have a relevant story. I was once hiking down a mountain, and near the top I slipped and fell on a rock, cutting my knee to the bone. When I saw it, I calmly called out to the person I was hiking with to get gauze pads, without any panicking or shouting. He helped, and I was able to make it down on my own.
The way I did it was by looking at the situation and seeing what had to be done, then figuring out the best way to do it. I’m not sure if this was normal, but it was an immediate reaction for me.
Moral: Search for goals than find an optimal path to achieve them, even in stressful situations. The way to do this is by drilling a procedure in your head until you can do it by instinct. Not specifics, as you can’t plan for things like nails in your shoes. But you can plan general emergencies procedures, like remove the puncture, clean the wound, and apply pressure.
I had a similar experience after getting hit by a car while crossing the street. A friend who saw me and came running over actually thought I was in shock or something, because he couldn’t believe that I was taking it so calmly. The adrenalin also helped, of course—I didn’t feel any pain at all until nearly half an hour later. The only emotional reaction I can remember was extreme annoyance at the breaking of my glasses.
Oddly enough, I fall into the same category as the post author. I don’t think I’m very good at reacting swiftly, and I absorb information and handle that sort of testing very well. But I do generally manage to keep my head. I suspect this is a pretty recent development, which may affect my perception of the matter.
I’ve found one useful heuristic. If I periodically remind myself to keep cool and reevaluate the current situation, I generally get good results. Slow-reaction types tend to quickly make a bunch of assumptions when thrust into a situation calling for swift action, and weeding out the erroneous ones is very helpful.
Movie/book “Touching The Void”.
F’ing amazing story of not giving up.