An Extra Reason To Make Your Bed

In the graduation commencement speech at the University of Texas, Austin in 2014, Admiral William McRaven shared 10 points to changing the world. One of those points was to make your bed in the morning. 

McRaven commented on how you can set the pace for the day by knocking out the first task with discipline, and no matter how poorly the day goes you return to the promise of a new day and a fresh start. It’s a life-changing insight in what has become one of the most renowned speeches of the century.

But let’s take it one step further. Last week I was talking to my friend Arozo and we got into the extra implications of making your bed. Yes, making your bed is a positive signal at the end of the day, but equally important to consider is how not making your bed can be a negative signal.

As Jack Canfield says, our unconscious mind operates off of a simple formula: E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome. What happens throughout the day (without us realizing it) is that we are exposed to different stimuli, experience different events, and unconsciously respond to them to produce an outcome.

The example of an unmade bed demonstrates that potential harm in this: 

Event - You get home after a long day, you’re tired and a co-worker is upset with you, and you see that your bed isn’t made.

Response - Based on the emotional context and your prior belief systems, you attribute an unmade bed to your own character flaws of lacking discipline and not being able to do anything well.

Outcome - You take an additional hit to your self-confidence, you have less hope for yourself, and you show up the next day to work more defensive and on guard, which makes you more likely to respond poorly to the events you encounter.

It’s a self-defeating cycle that gets amplified and reinforced over time. That is, unless you do what James Clear of “Atomic Habits” recommends and “make the cue invisible”. If you make your bed, the event doesn’t happen, the thought spiral doesn’t occur, and you don’t receive that negative outcome.

Not only should this bring awareness to the importance of making your bed, but encourage you to be more proactive and disciplined. You never know how your environment might trigger an event that you unconsciously process.

Every day is an opportunity to become more aware of how things work. It all serves you in being better moment to moment.