Once we have “chosen” a particular solution, we have to act on it. This is often the hardest part of the continuum. Our perceived inability to act may well cause us to revisit and reconsider the other options that we thought about before initially deciding on one plan of action. We may also try and look for other potential solutions, especially if we start to over-consider the potential consequences of what we first decided upon. This way of thinking puts us squarely back into the “Deliberation Loop” and moves us further away from action, which should be the goal of our threat recognition and decision process.

Our fear instinct often prevents us from acting upon any decision that is made when in a high stress situation. If you are involved in an incident where an aggressive individual is screaming and shouting obscenities at you, despite being fully aware that at any moment he may start to physically assault you, and that your best plan would be to either run away or attack him first, your fear emotion may well hold you in check. In any potentially dangerous situation, even where the level of risk to our safety may be small, our fear emotion will often prevent us from acting.

Anyone who has bungee jumped or parachuted will tell of the inertia that is experienced when you stand on a platform waiting to jump into open air. Our conscious mind knows that both of these activities are relatively low-risk however our emotional self knows otherwise. Our emotional self knows that whilst you don’t act you are not experiencing pain or danger and this is good. Let’s now take the parachute example and say that the plane is about to crash, you’ve got over your denial, deliberation and that your only chance of safety is to make the parachute jump; there will still be hesitation. In the moment when you are waiting to make jour jump you are safe, you are not experiencing pain or trauma and your emotional mind will assure you that this is a good state to be in, and whatever you choose to do will take you out of this state. Your emotional side doesn’t understand the future, it only understands the now. It doesn’t know what you will feel and experience in the future, that your only chance of safety is to jump. It just knows that at this very moment you are safe.

This fear inertia is what holds you back from acting when dealing with an individual(s) where it is obvious that physical violence is the only outcome. As you stand there waiting for the inevitable punch, push or grab, your fear emotion will tell you that at this moment you are not experiencing any pain or discomfort and that you shouldn’t do anything to risk this state of affairs – whatever action you take, whether it’s running away or making a pre-emptive assault carries a degree of risk to it, and this is an unknown. What your body does know is that whilst not acting nothing bad or painful is happening to you.

When you overthink the consequences of a decision, your natural hesitation to act is reinforced. I see this all the time when I watch sparring (which is great training for fighting but barely resembles a street-fight itself). Often I will see two individuals, at distance, looking for openings. One will start a kick or an attack only to see their opponent respond and pull back etc – for more experienced individuals, these responses can indicate how they should initiate their next attack. However most people start to imagine what will happen if their attack is unsuccessful. They have seen/realized that their opponent is going to respond in some way to what they were planning to do and they now start to imagine all the ways in which they might respond. Weighed down with all the imagined consequences of their action they end up doing nothing. Our fear response may hold us back from initially acting but it is these imagined consequences that reinforces it.

In Combat Sports, such as Boxing and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), the pre-fight build up to a contest is a great example of an individual attempting to get their opponent to consider the consequences of certain actions. A Boxer who repeatedly tells the media that the person he is fighting will not be able to get past his lead punch without walking on to his straight right, is attempting to get his opponent to hesitate and consider the consequences of trying to do so when in the ring. In a street-fight when an aggressor keeps telling you what they’re going to do to you, they are attempting to intimidate you into not acting. When a person tells you their plan for you, they are trying to reinforce your own fear instincts desire for inaction. You can choose to believe what they are telling you or not. You can also choose to believe your own imagination’s conclusions and scenarios concerning the consequences of acting as well. Or better still you can simply act on your decision.