Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...and Maybe the World

“In battle soldiers die, families grieve, your days are long and filled with anxious moments. You search for something that can give you solace, that can motivate you to begin your day, that can be a sense of pride in an oftentimes ugly world.”

McRaven stresses that the world can be a painful and ugly place; its joy and beauty is often masked by undesirable or unfair circumstances. He argues that individuals who create habits to deal with obstacles in a productive way will approach these obstacles from the perspective of usefully positive productivity.

“The small rubber boat made us realize that no man could make it through training alone. No SEAL could make it through combat alone and by extension you needed people in your life to help you through the difficult times.”

While most people will never face actual combat, McRaven’s point is highly relatable: We all need other people to succeed in life. Nobody is an island. Human beings thrive in relationships and in community. Teamwork is key.

“I had never given up on anything in my life and she assured me that I was not going to start now. She refused to let me feel sorry for myself. It was the kind of tough love that I needed, and as the days went by, I got better.”

While stoic pride can be valuable, there is nothing wrong with seeking the help of loved ones during difficult times, McRaven reassures his readers—something he must affirm since much of the rest of the book is about repressing complaints and refusing to acknowledge pain. However, even in this episode of vulnerability, McRaven cannot simply describe his relationship with his wife as nurturing lest he somehow reveal a weakness—instead, she gives him “tough love,” a version of the kind of motivation he received in SEAL training.

“This seemingly frail, mop-haired man who I doubted could make it through training was Lieutenant Tom Norris.”

McRaven learned firsthand that looks can be deceiving, though his experience did nothing to undermine his prejudice against men who do not look physically strong. McRaven laughs at his knee-jerk prejudice about the thin Lieutenant Tom Norris, but only because the man turned out to be a decorated war hero. The lesson is that valor can be hidden in even the most unlikely places, but not that there is something fundamentally wrong with judging people based on appearance.

“Because, Mr. Mac, life isn’t fair and the sooner you learn that the better off you will be.”

The lesson of the “sugar cookie” punishment is that life isn’t fair—one of the many ways that SEAL training seeks to psychologically break down trainees to weed out those who cannot resist this kind of emotional manipulation. McRaven took the “sugar cookie” treatment to mean that many things simply lie outside our control. He never questions whether this kind of psychic battery is the most productive way to train elite troops, or whether it produces overly hardened, unempathetic men.

“The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life’s unfairness: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malala Yousafzai, and—Moki Martin.”

Accepting the occurrence of unfair tragedies is key to living through them. McRaven illustrates this point by name-checking great men and women who have faced unwarranted physical attacks (Malala Yousafzai), were born with disabilities (Helen Keller), suffered unjust imprisonment (Nelson Mandela), and coped with degenerative disease (Stephen Hawking), to demonstrate the possibilities available to those who can emotionally overcome what has happened to them. To this list of luminaries, McRaven adds his friend Martin, who had permanent severe injury after a bike accident.

“What made The Circus so feared by the students was not just the additional pain but also the knowledge that the day after The Circus you would be exhausted from the extra workout and so fatigued that you would fail to meet the standards again. Another Circus would follow, then another and another.”

The Circus is another diabolically designed exercise that is intended to push SEAL trainees out of the program. Ostensibly assigned as punishment for poor performance, The Circus added grueling workout sessions to already exhausting days, often leading to a vicious circle of failure, as being worn out from days in The Circus resulted in poor performance the following day thanks to fatigue.

“The Circus, which had started as a punishment for failure, was making us stronger, faster, and more confident in the water. While other students quit, unable to handle the occasional failure and the pain it brought, Marc and I were determined not to allow The Circus to beat us.”

As a successful graduate of the SEAL program, McRaven is a firm believer in its principles and techniques. For him, The Circus becomes a productive crucible, the stresses of which reveal his full abilities. However, the idea that enduring pain and exhaustion is often the best way to improve performance seems like a flawed conclusion to draw—McRaven is an outlier, not a generalizable model.

“When you live in close quarters with twelve SEALs there isn’t anywhere to hide.”

Living in community puts one’s flaws on display. Here, being in constant contact with subordinates exposes his qualities to full view—ostensibly once with the result that he ends up fired from one SEAL team and transferred to another.

“‘When are you going to learn, Mr. Mac?’ he said with an unmistakable tone of contempt. ‘That obstacle course is going to beat you every time unless you start taking some risks.’”

The question of whether a particular risk is worth it comes up often in military logistics and operation planning. McRaven believes that mitigating all risks and erring always on the side of caution invites failure. It is difficult for readers to know whether taking the riskier path has really always worked out for McRaven, since his only examples are of decisions that ended in success.

“However, contrary to what outsiders saw, the risk was usually calculated, thoughtful, and well planned. Even if it was spontaneous, the operators knew their limits but believed in themselves enough to try.”

Whether we face foreseen or spur-of-the-moment decisions, risk can be mitigated and approached with caution and prudence. The author is certainly not advocating for stupidity or carelessness; despite his earlier argument about risk-taking as necessary for success, here he adds that the proper way of approaching risk is to carefully weigh the benefits, consider the good to be achieved, and then refuse to allow fear to have the final say in our decisions.

“Our goal, which we believed to be honorable and noble, gave us courage, and courage is a remarkable quality. Nothing and nobody can stand in your way.”

Courage in the face of fear or failure is easier to find when we are convinced of the absolute nobility of our goal. McRaven argues that if our desires are dishonorable, there is little incentive to be courageous—though there are certainly examples of daring criminals. For him, however, attempting something for the greater good, spurs bravery to follow.

“Bullies are all the same; whether they are in the school yard, in the workplace, or ruling a country through terror. They thrive on fear and intimidation.”

McRaven believes that the fear we experience when facing a bully is not one-sided; often, the bullies are also afraid, though they are willing to be violent about it. Refusing to be intimidated is the first step in confronting oppressors wherever we find them.

“There is no darker moment in life than losing someone you love, and yet I watched time and again as families, as military units, as towns, as cities, and as a nation, how we came together to be our best during those tragic times.”

The death of a loved one is a deeply painful life experience. However, McRaven is a firm believer in the potential for dark times to reveal our full capabilities.

“In that dark moment, reach deep inside yourself and be your very best.”

McRaven peppers his writing with aphoristic platitudes such as this vague piece of inspiration. These contrast sharply with the opening chapter’s very concrete and specific piece of advice—making the bed every morning as a signifier of intentionality.

“It was only Wednesday, and we all knew that another three days of pain and exhaustion lay ahead. This was the moment of truth for a lot of the students.”

It is always tempting to give up on something arduous, but for McRaven, the times when he refused to quit have been life-defining. Often, he compares himself favorably to fellow trainees who chose to leave the SEAL program, arguing that the unwillingness to quit is always the better choice. Critics point out, however, reams of evidence to the contrary—often, stopping an unfruitful effort is much better than succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy, the idea that once you’ve invested resources in something, you must see it through to the end no matter what.

“I could see the instructor smiling. He knew that once one man quit, others would follow.”

SEAL instructors knew from experience that many trainees would quit the exhausting program. However, McRaven inadvertently reveals that being the first to quit was often as psychologically challenging as sticking it out. Here, we can see the courage required to admit the need to leave a difficult situation—most of those who end up quitting can only do so once someone else has paved the way. Humans naturally seek out like-minded teams; while the pressure of others can allow you to endure more than you could on your own, the support of others can also make it easier to seek help.

“In the darkness, with the fire reflecting on the face of the instructor, I could see him smile. Once again, we had learned an important lesson: the power of one person to unite the group, the power of one person to inspire those around him, to give them hope.”

One of the book’s most poignant moments is this image of a lone voice in the darkness. Joining in the song allowed the men of McRaven’s training team to band together against the taunts of the instructors. The moment recalls stirring examples of troops rallying each other in battle.

“We will all find ourselves neck deep in mud someday. That is the time to sing loudly, to smile broadly, to lift up those around you and give them hope that tomorrow will be a better day.”

McRaven stresses the importance of being open to receiving help and being that help for others. Sometimes all someone really needs is a beacon of hope, a reason to continue on in difficult circumstances, or a mentor to follow.

“If you quit, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Quitting never makes anything easier.”

McRaven defines himself as a man who has never voluntarily quit. This conviction makes him believe that quitting is somehow morally tainted, and he urges readers to persevere when something is difficult to achieve no matter what. This advice, while well-meaning, does not recognize the many situations in which quitting is the much healthier and smarter option.

“As a wartime leader you try not to internalize the human suffering. You know that it is part of combat. Soldiers get wounded. Soldiers die. If you allow every decision you make to be predicated on the possible loss of life you will struggle mightily to be effective.”

In combat, indecision can be the difference between life and death; even when decisions are made properly and prudently, sometimes people still die. In civilian life, the stakes are rarely as high, but the principle remains the same: If every decision is made in fear, paralysis by analysis will result.

“If you fill your days with pity, sorrowful for the way you have been treated, bemoaning your lot in life, blaming your circumstances on someone or something else, then life will be long and hard.”

Accountability and self-governance are key for a life well-lived, since a sense of responsibility and self-control are signifiers of maturity. McRaven urges readers to reject adopting a victim mentality; his strong emphasis is on finding ways to exercise control over one’s environment rather than feeling helpless within it. This argument is appealing, but glosses over systems of oppression that people simply cannot have control over but which nevertheless affect their lives in negative ways. While always wanting to play the victim is undesirable, being a victim is often unavoidable—as McRaven himself demonstrates with his story of the shorter recruit who was perennially bullied by SEAL instructors for a quality he could never control or change.

“If you think it’s hard to change the lives of ten people, change their lives forever, you’re wrong.”

The ability of one human being to radically change the world has always been underestimated. Most people may not be called upon to perform earth-shattering deeds, but every person is capable of making the world a better place.