Make Your Bed

Want to make a difference? Make your bed.

 

And I don’t mean this in some sort of metaphorical way.

 

I mean this quite literally.

 

Make your stinkin’ bed.

 

Making your bed will reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter.

 

If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right.

 

And whether you want to admit it or not, the little things are far more important than the large things are when it comes to managing your life, finances, relationships, or business.

 

Think about it for a second…

 

Do the small things tend to add up in your personal life? Maybe your shoelace broke when you were dressing for work, then you spilled your coffee on your freshly-washed clothes, and then you bit your tongue while eating lunch and now that’s just nagging at you all day.

 

All of a sudden, you’ve had a bad day.

 

Or maybe it’s the complete opposite, and you found a five dollar bill floating down the sidewalk on your way to work, then you got a text from your spouse just wishing you a happy day, and that was followed by a breakthrough with a tough project with your team that you had been working on for weeks.

 

We can use countless examples.

 

In your relationships, do the tiny things like saying "good morning" (or not) or giving your spouse a kiss (or not) tend to add up over time and then just explode (or implode) into something magical (or tragic)? Of course they do!

 

In your finances, do you find yourself in debt, yet don’t know why? Look at your statements.

 

Do you have a ton of tiny purchases at Starbucks, Amazon, or Wal-Mart, that you’re maybe just a tad too embarrassed to admit are adding up over time? Of course you do!

 

In your business, how do you think people like Elon Musk or Bill Gates got to where they are today? By making the Tesla Model 3 or the Cloud and iPhone X right out of the gate? Of course not!

 

They did the small things right, focused on one sale at a time, and continued to improve over time.

 

You see, small leaks can sink a great ship…

 

And tiny investments can compound over time…

 

But the grit of it all is that the little things are far more important than the large things we so often let harbor in our thoughts…

 

The "I’m having a bad week" (or month, or year, God-forbid...), "my relationship isn’t working", "I can’t escape my debts", "my business isn’t growing as fast as I want it to"…

 

These are all very big-picture items that you let encapsulate you…

 

Yet if you were to just focus on the little things, you would be remarked at just how much your life would be changed…

 

And for the better.

 

So while making your bed can seem like such an ordinary and mundane task to accomplish, it often sets the table for an accomplished, productive day.

 

By taking only a few minutes of your time every morning, you can ignite a positive tone for your day.

 

You see, we write a lot about productivity and healthy habits.

 

Why? Because, well, we teach a lot about productivity and healthy habits. Not just “doing things” for the sake of doing them and feeling “busy”, but doing things for the sake of being as efficient and productive as possible.

 

There is a remarkable difference between the two.

 

If you were to see a snippet of my daily to-do list, you would see that the very first thing is to make my bed.

 

Why? Because, well, it is a way of quite literally putting yesterday to bed and making way for the opportunities of a new day.

 

US Navy SEAL Admiral William McRaven gave an inspirational speech to students at the University of Texas, stating that making your bed will give you “a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

 

As the basal ganglia works, so do your habits…

 

And as habits work, so do you…

 

Once a routine of something as simple as making your bed becomes habit, you may find that other healthy habits will naturally follow.

 

Perhaps you now keep your clothes off the floor and suddenly, dusting also becomes a compulsory custom that you welcome.

 

Heck, you might even start doing the dishes and folding your laundry as they require.

 

You might start telling your spouse just how much you appreciate her, and what once seemed like an outward falling of love is now something reattached and something you look forward to.

 

You might decide that going to Starbucks is an unnecessary and expensive task to undertake day-in and day-out, and that maybe if you had just woken up thirty minutes earlier each day, you could save over $125 each month by making your own coffee.

 

Remember, these things add up! The best part? You can still buy Starbucks coffee! The only difference is that you made it. It’s cheaper this way and you’ll probably feel a little better about yourself, too.

 

Or you might even look at how much you need to accomplish in your business, month-in and month-out, as an incredible task at face value, but when you learn the process of chunking you come to realize that small, positive tweaks, changes, and tasks accomplished day-in and day-out will lead to exponential results year-in and year-out.

 

But start with something simple:

 

 

 

To making your bed,

Tyler