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At a commencement speech, Navy Seal Admiral William McRaven said something very profound. His statement was “If you want to change the world start off by making your bed.” This seems rather simplistic, but it is a powerful reality.

Training to be the best of the best starts with small steps, even making your bed. He also made the humorous aside that if you were having a bad day, you at least came home to a made-up bed. “So, if you want to change the world, make up your bed.” Or, another way to put it is a tidy bed is a clean slate for a new day.

Aside from the bed analogy, what seems important to grasp here is that a life of greater success and excellence starts with our daily habits and rituals. What do our daily habits and rituals say or reveal about us? We want to be a success, but do our daily routines line up with that? For example, do we look like a success? Do we put our best foot forward in our appearance and dress? What are the daily things we are doing to improve our health or tone our physique, so we can have more energy to handle success? How about our finances? What do our daily rituals reveal about the importance of money and managing finances well? What are we doing daily to monitor our spending or finding creative ways to save money? Actually, our daily routines are quite revealing about what matters to us and what is important.

When it comes to success, the small things do matter and over time really do add up. It is the small things and rituals that we build into our lives daily that become habits. Those habits, eventually will either enhance our lives, the quality of our life or have the potential to do the opposite.

So, when it comes to success in any area of life, the question becomes what are our daily actions or rituals fostering or developing? The road to success starts one step at a time and one habit at a time. So, maybe making up our beds is a good place to begin!