The life lessons in Naked and Afraid are always learned the hard way as I’ve seen from binging this show with my husband. It’s a simple premise: one woman and one man are taken to a seemingly middle-of-nowhere location where they have to fend for themselves for 21 days. They’re also butt nekkid. Each is allowed to bring a tool. There’s a camera crew following them around but they aren’t allowed to interfere.

As much as I question the decision these contestants make, I know I couldn’t handle an overnight in the jungle. The first spider I saw would have me “tapping out.” By watching this show, Chris and I have watched humans grow, break, and make stupid decisions. Here’s what I’ve been learning from this outrageous show:

1. Being difficult holds everyone back

When one of the partners refuses to work with the other, everything slows down. In a survival situation, it’s less about what you want and more about what will keep the team happy and healthy. We watched one show where the woman contestant refused to hunt or find food because she thought it was the man’s job. And then they starved. They went for two weeks without substantial food.

This happened again when a man contestant let his pride get the best of him when the woman ended up hunting because he lied about his primitive hunting skills. She dug for crabs and speared a fish. His excuse was that he needed to tend the fire. 

This is a life lesson that can be applied everywhere: bikes, work, relationships. Anywhere that requires teamwork. 

2. You will always be underprepared

No matter how high their PSR (Primitive Survival Rating) is at the beginning of the show, the contestants always seem unprepared. The men always say, “I’m a master fire starter,” and as soon as the cameras are on them, somehow they’ve lost all their skills, it’s too humid, too dry, too wet, too insert-an-excuse-here.

There are people who come in (mostly men) who claim they’re the best hunter yet can’t find a bug to kill. And when they find a bite-sized worm, they’re elated and so proud of themselves.

It begs the question: Why would you go on a survivalist show and not know how to do survival things? Some people don’t know how to start a fire while others don’t know how to hunt. If I’m going to go through the process of applying, interviewing, and competing, you’re damn sure I’m going to prepare in case my partner taps out, leaving me alone.

It seems like this happens in life all the time. We train, we study, we do all the things we think we need to do to be prepared and then life throws us a curveball. The contestants who do the best are the ones who can roll with what nature’s throwing at them. It’s the ones who stay calm when gnats are attacking them throughout the night or when they miss spearing a fish or the fire starter isn’t actually starting a fire.

The valuable life lesson here is to go with the flow. A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, as they say. 

3. People underestimate how difficult it will be

More often then not, when contestants are speaking to the camera, they admit how much harder it is than they thought it’d be. I don’t ever plan on signing up for this but even I know how awful it’d be to go through this. There’s no way I’d do it. I’m way too “precious,” as Chris refers to me.

People go days, if not weeks, without food. Some survive off berries and nuts and others are eating worms and termites. Let’s not forget that they’re sleeping naked in the open, either on the ground or on logs. If I had my choice, I’d be raised off the ground to prevent creepy crawlies from slithering their way on to my leg. But that doesn’t matter! Because bugs are constantly biting at them.

They’re caught in torrential rainstorms, stalked by predators, monkeys pee on them, they’re drinking dirty water, getting food poisoning, and for some reason, they thought it’d be easier than what it was.

Regardless of how difficult it ends up being for them, most of the contestants persevere. They may cry, shout, lose their minds, but they end up getting through a hellish 21 days of surviving in some crazy location.

4. Mindset is everything

The people who struggle the most are the ones with the shitty attitudes at the start. Sometimes it’s not always obvious who has the shitty attitude but if your mind’s brittle, it will cave under the pressure of this challenge. One man was so malnourished he was doubled-over in hunger pains. He just laid in the sand while the woman recorded herself giving the audience a play-by-play of his actions.

Another contestant got so down about his lackluster hunting skills that he laid down in their shelter for days on end while the woman hunted for fish in the nearby river. He was so mentally weak that he failed at this only job while she hunted: minding the fire. He ended up falling asleep letting the fire go out.

There was a woman contestant who was completely in over her head and was a leech to the rest of the group. She’d sunbathe as the others gathered food and tools. She didn’t know how to weave a basket to catch fish and instead, gave up halfway and made herself an ankle bracelet instead. She had an awful attitude and no one in the group wanted to bring her with them on extraction day. They decided she was like a wounded soldier at war and they couldn’t leave her behind. That was the only reason why they took care of her. 

Life is and will always be about your mindset. We can think the worse or the best. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” The contestants who thought they were defeated from the beginning brought on their own demise. While the others who believed they have the willpower to make it to the end, do so in a humble fashion.

This is a life lesson constantly taught to us by life in that what we think about, we bring about. Always check your mindset before doing anything. See how you’re feeling as you start a project or conversation. Are you going into it as a defeatist or an opportunist?

5. There is growth through challenge

At the end of one of the shows, one of the contestants said that he grew a lot because of this challenge. He did things he never thought he could and learned more about himself in those 21 days than he has in his whole life.

As they’re escorted away by a helicopter or boat, they always reflect on the past 21 days as dried mud peels off their cheeks. It’s always something about not knowing if they had it within them to finish the challenge but trying anyway. They second-guessed themselves, they wanted to quit, and they cried often. But the ones who got picked up by some machine at the end of the challenge learned what it takes to prevail.

It’s never enjoyable in the thick of a challenge, whether it be out in the desert or swamp for 21 days, working toward your dream career, suffering from a loss (job, loved one, or otherwise) or finding a lifelong partner. Most of us don’t relish in the process. The process is messy and hard and stressful and keeps us up at night like hundreds of mosquitos searching for blood.

Once we get through the obstacle and come out on the other side, whether we’re still in one piece or victorious, we grow. We appreciate all the bullshit before it. We learn something new about ourselves that we didn’t know before and that’s how the majority of the contestants felt.

So if you’re going through some shitty shit right now, remember that you will come out of it on the other side, one way or another. Remind yourself that it’s through challenges that we grow. That’s the biggest life lesson of all. 

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