Tony Robbins, the “#1 Life and Business Strategist”, is one of the leaders in the field of personal development. Love him or hate him, you can decide by trying some of his practices for yourself and see if they help you or not. Below is a summary of his Morning Ritual which he does every day.
This morning ritual takes him only between 15 to 20 minutes. He even does some parts of this during his morning walk. The overall purpose is “to wire [himself] for happiness.”
Morning Ritual #1 – The Cold Plunge
Tony jumps into a cold pool (13 degrees celcius / 56 degrees fahrenheit) for 60 seconds.
He says that there are physiologic benefits to this, but it seems his main focus is on the psychological. “If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”
Morning Ritual #2 – “Priming”
Explosive Breathing
I’ve found contradictory statements for how exactly Tony does his breathing exercise.
Perhaps the best source is on his website.
Breath in through the nose for 5 seconds.
Hold the breath for 20 seconds.
Exhale through mouth over 10 seconds.
Whatever the time you spend on each phase, he recommends a ratio of 1:4:2. (So if you breath in for 3 seconds, you should hold for 12 seconds, exhale over 6 seconds).
He repeats this cycle of inhale-hold-exhale 10 times.
Visualization / Mental Rehearsal
This next section takes 9 minutes, divided into 3 different exercises. In the podcast Tony Robbins stated that he doesn’t meditate, but these are really forms of meditation.
Step 1: 3 minutes of gratitude
The idea of this exercise is to focus himself on emotions that will cause him to be a better version of himself.
According to Tony, two of the most detrimental emotions are Anger and Fear and he says that gratitude is the antidote to these emotions (“If you’re grateful you can’t be angry and you can’t be fearful”).
He thinks of 3 things that he is grateful for (which can eb people, situations, things). He makes sure that he really steps INTO the image / scene, and “feels the moment”.
Importantly, he makes sure that at least 1 thing he’s grateful for is really simple. For example “the wind on my face” or “my child’s smile”. He trains himself to appreciate the little beautiful moments of life.
To drive home the reason for this, he gives the example of astronauts who have been up in space, seen earth as a little ball and come back down to a ticker tape parade. They’ve reached the pinnacle of their lives at the young age of 32, where do they go from here? This was their lifelong pursuit – and they achieved it. He says that many astronauts face have major emotional challenges when they get back, including alcohol & drug abuse. They thought that the only way to be happy was to go to the moon and along the way they forgot to find adventure in a smile.
Step 2: 3 Minutes of Blessings
Tony imagines life / light / god / energy pouring into body, healing everything along the way. Strengthening him physically. Strengthening his passion, love, generosity, creativity & humour. He sees any problems he has just being solved.
He then extends this imagery to his circles of intimate family, friends , clients and sends them the same healing energy, imagining them getting what they need energy wise and being healed.
(This is kind of similar to Loving Kindness meditation from what I’m aware).
Step 3: 3 to Thrive
Tony visualizes 3 specific outcomes that matter to him. He SEES, FEELS and EXPERIENCES these outcomes as DONE, as if he has already accomplished these outcomes. He sees the impact that these outcomes have, how peoples’ lives are touched. He feels the joy of seeing this as done and the outcome it causes, he feels it as DONE in his bones and is grateful for it.
Source:
The Tony Robbins Podcast – Episode 11.
Inspiration for further reading:
