Everybody has heard it before. The question is asked, 'How do you eat an elephant?" By now everybody also knows the answer which is "one piece at a time'. In other words, even something that seems impossible becomes simple if we just tackle it one piece at a time.
When you decide that you need to begin prepping for an uncertain future it can also take on the feeling of facing that elephant. It can seem overwhelming and deciding where to start can be both confusing and scary because you want to be as prepped as possible but you KNOW you can't do it all at once. At that point, its time to realize that just like with the elephant, you will handle it one piece at a time.
Yes, there are websites galore, tons of good advice and new things to learn about every aspect of prepping. With unlimited financing and a lifetime to prepare It would be a cinch. The problem is that most of us have budgets, jobs, families and lives to live which interfere with devoting every dime and moment of time to prepping. It can become discouraging when we are faced with the NEED to do something but a mountain of "elephant" to chew.
My suggestion is to focus on one or two pieces at a time and depending on what it is either learn it, practice it, buy it or store it. I don't expect anyone to learn to grow, can, dehydrate, ferment, salt, smoke, pickle, forage, cook, bake, filter, purify and infuse all in one lesson! It takes time and practice to do anything well. It takes research to figure it out and practice to be able to actually do it. Nobody, myself included, does it all at once. I have spent years researching, learning and practicing.
Don't get me wrong. There is indeed one great big elephant in the room and it needs to be taken care of as efficiently and quickly as possible BUT don't become so overwhelmed that you also become paralyzed. Do it like every prepper before you has done, one bite at a time. Yes, I spent years learning and practicing and it may seem like you can't catch up but when I started it wasn't as easy to find the information. There wasn't a prepper community on the Internet to help or if there was, I wasn't aware of it. The books were fewer and the help was nonexistent. People didn't "get it" Or me when I was starting out in this lifestyle.
Thankfully, new preppers have all kinds of help and information available now. That doesn't mean that its easier to learn but it makes the researching quicker and support so much better. The actual work is still the same though and unfortunately the time to prepare, in my opinion, is shorter. No matter how you look at it, whether you started years ago or just last week that elephant still has to be tackled.
So, pick something you need to do and begin doing it. Pick something you need to store and begin storing it. Pick something you need to learn and begin learning it. When that something is done or in progress then move on to something else. Eventually, you will find that the elephant is smaller and smaller. Your prepping, whether it is supplies or skills will naturally be larger and larger. Before you know it you will have gotten rid of that elephant in the room. You will be more secure and more prepared. You may even be ready to open the door and let in a whole new animal that needs taking care of. Hopefully, if its a dragon you will be well prepared to slay it.
Southern Wood Elf