What are successful people doing that sets them up for optimal productivity and achievement throughout the day?
It all starts with the morning routine.
American motivational speaker, coach, and author Tony Robbins has a unique morning routine full of effective productivity and time management hacks that he’s been practicing for years. He credits this routine for helping him get the energy he needs to work crazy hours and do so much every day.
This is what he does every morning to start his day off right.
Waking Up
Tony Robbins doesn’t wake up at a specific time every morning. Instead, he says that he wakes up between 7-9 am every morning.
Having a less strict wake-up time allows him to get the optimal amount of rest each night instead of forcing his body to wake up before it’s ready.
This wake-up range also works well for highly active lifestyles like Robbins has while touring. Since he spends a lot of time on the road leading seminars and other functions, time zones are often changing.
The Takeaway:
If you have a busy, fluctuating schedule, especially when it involves travel, you don’t need to be too strict about the exact time you’re waking up. Having a wake-up range gives you some leniency without sacrificing anything in your morning routine.
Adrenaline Support “Cocktail”
After waking up, the first thing Tony Robbins does is drink a homemade shake. The recipe for his shake was developed by Billy Beck III, a personal trainer Robbins works with who also works with professional athletes, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and others.
The shake is made from a mixture of powdered greens, antioxidants, and vitamin C. With this, he usually takes B vitamin capsules as well as other nutritional supplements.
He credits this part of his routine for giving him a mental and physical boost that starts the day off right.
The Takeaway:
Make sure you’re providing your body with the nutrients you need to keep up with your lifestyle. Your health matters, so make it a priority to get the right nutrients for a healthy, productive day.
Meditation
Tony Robbins is a big advocate for meditation. He developed his own 10-minute meditation routine that he calls “priming”.
The purpose of his priming routine is to set himself up for success throughout the day. In his own words, priming is about “cueing and prompting enabling emotions for the rest of the day”.
Priming is broken down into 3 main parts of 3 minutes each, with an additional 1 minute of focused breathing.
This is how it works:
Part 1: Breathing
He starts the exercise by sitting still and focusing on breathing for 1 minute.
Breathe deeply through your nose while stretching your arms upwards in a shoulder press motion. Then, exhale sharply through your nose while lowering your arms down to your body with your palms facing up.
Repeat this motion for 30 seconds, take a short break, then repeat it again.
Part 2: Gratefulness
Think about 3 things you’re grateful for.
Spend around a minute reliving each one, thinking about the memory and what makes you grateful for that moment. Limit yourself to 3 only.
Part 3: Connection
Visualize yourself connecting with a healing presence. The language is up to you, whether that means feeling the presence of a higher being or God, your own inner peace, a powerful light, or any other presence.
Imagine the healing presence flowing from the top of your head down through the rest of your body, bit by bit. Then, it flows back up and out of your head again.
Robbins likes to imagine the light is then spreading out to the world, touching loved ones and strangers alike.
Part 4: Visualizing
End the exercise by visualizing 3 things you’re going to do successfully during the day.
Imagine each event as if you’ve already done it. Feel the emotions you will feel when that task is finished as if it’s done now.
Spend around 1 minute on each success. Make sure you focus on the success itself, not on how you’ll get there or the hard work to get the result.
Robbins imagines how his success throughout the day will also be a benefit to others, not just himself.
The Takeaway:
Short daily meditation can help you mentally prepare yourself for a successful day full of accomplishments and step into an abundance mentality. Mental preparation is just another step to get you fully ready to face the challenges ahead.
Exercise
After meditation, Tony Robbins does a short, high-intensity workout. The focus of the workout is maintaining a high heart rate throughout, resulting in a very effective workout that only takes around 15 minutes.
Here’s how his workout routine goes:
Part 1: Static pushing/pulling (5 minutes)
For 5 minutes, Robbins will exert his full force in a series of exercises with no break in between. Personally, he uses a machine from OsteoStrong, a company in which he is an investor.
Using this machine, he cycles through the motions of a bench press, leg press, pulldown crunch, and deadlift. He does each of these for a few seconds in a full rotation for 5 minutes.
Without this machine, a similar effect can be achieved by pushing or pulling on a static, unmovable surface. If you have a set of free weights, you can also use these to do a single rep with the max weight for each exercise in a rotation.
Part 2: Dynamic rowing (4 minutes)
The next part of the workout is using a dynamic rowing machine called a ROM Quick Gym. This is a highly intense workout because this machine adjusts to your level of exertion, keeping up the intensity even if you slow down.
For a similar effect, you can hop on a rowing machine and do the exercise straight for 4 minutes.
Because this exercise is completely exhausting, Robbins will usually only do it a few times a week. On off days, he switches out this exercise for a different intense workout in the same time period.
Part 3: Sauna to cold dunk (3-5 minutes)
Although this is not working out his muscles, this part of the routine is something Robbins strongly advocates for. He believes in it so much that he has a personal sauna and cold plunge installed in every one of his homes!
This is considered part of the workout because Robbins will stay in the sauna at high heat for a few minutes before submerging himself in frigid cold water. Doing these actions back to back keeps his heart rate high, maintaining the intensity of the earlier exercises.
The biggest benefit of going from the hot sauna to the cold plunge is that it clears the mind and wakes you up effectively. It’s also a discipline-building exercise because you’re training your mind to act without hesitation.
Part 4: Stretching
Lastly, Robbins spends about 2 minutes stretching. He uses a back inversion machine that suspends him upside down. This is said to decompress the spine while lowering the heart rate simultaneously.
Instead of using a machine, you can also just spend 2 minutes stretching. Focus on stretches that open your body up and relax your back.
The Takeaway:
Exercise has incredible benefits for your physical body and your mind. Short, highly intense workouts are a great way to get the benefits even if your schedule is tight.
Breakfast
Food is fuel for the body. What’s fueling you?
For Tony Robbins, breakfast is an important way to energize after working out and fuel his body for a long day of hard work.
The main things Robbins considers with food are consistency and nutritious organic meals.
For his own breakfast, he tends to eat the same thing every morning: free-range eggs and organic coconut bread.
The Takeaway:
You don’t need a complex, specialized breakfast every day. Stick to healthy foods that give you a good mix of protein from different sources.
Try to be consistent with what you eat. This is going to help you to get the nutrients you need more reliably while also developing a simple habit you’ll be able to follow through with every day.
If you have a few go-to meals for breakfast every day, it eliminates unnecessary decision-making in the morning and makes it more likely you’ll actually eat breakfast.
Conclusion
You don’t have to copy every habit Tony Robbins does in your own morning routine.
But, why not learn from his experience and pick out the bits that can help you spend your morning hours more efficiently?
Whether it’s the specialized meditation, the workout routine, or the good ideas, find a way to work some of the Tony Robbins morning routines into your own mornings and see if it helps you transform your daily productivity.
