Bed
“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.” A quote from Admiral William H. McRaven’s Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life… and Maybe the World.
I recently read this book, and although it is very short, I learned quite a bit from it. The book is based on the famous speech McRaven gave during a commencement at the University of Texas – Austin. It was about how if you start the day off with one accomplishment, for him it was making his bed, then the rest of the day could build upon that first success. His speech has been recirculated across the internet, including YouTube and Reddit. The book itself recently came up on the Kindle Prime Unlimited offering so I picked it up. Besides the advice about making your bed in the morning, the book also dives into the leadership principles that McRaven learned in the military, particularly in the Navy SEALs.
I grew up never making my bed, and when I moved out on my own, my sleeping area remained pretty spartan for the first year of living by myself. In fact, I slept on a camping air mattress with a sleeping bag and rarely turned on the heat, so by spartan standards, I was with them. When I finally purchased a mattress, I rarely had sheets on it, and I still slept in my bag, and still never turned on the heat. In retrospect I wish I would have lived a little more civilized. After meeting my wife, obviously all of that changed. Luckily, my wife is a bed maker and she learned that from her mother, where the expectation was that her bed was made every morning. My wife is also very disciplined, tireless, organized, and productive. She gets things done. She works incredibly hard. She is clearly the better individual between us two. I now make the bed with her and will make it when I am the last one out also.
McRaven’s point about making the bed though goes deeper than just setting yourself up for a string of accomplishments throughout the day. It is about building confidence. It is about reducing uncertainty and chaos. McRaven’s writing about his time in the SEALs dive deeper into leadership under pressure, to being consistent, resilient, maintaining standards, and acting when circumstances are not going your way. In fact, it lays out ten principles –
- Start your day with a task completed
- You cannot do it alone – you will need others
- Measure people by their character
- Life is not fair – move forward anyway
- Failure can make you stronger – take it as training, not a verdict on your ability
- Take some risks – move quickly, accept uncertainty
- Face the bullies – whether it’s a person, a situation, or yourself
- Rise to the occasion – become the best version of yourself even when embarrassed, frightened, or exhausted
- Give hope – do not let others give up
- Never quit – this provides immediate relief but perseverance allows you to discover yourself