Tony Robbins, one of the most successful life coaches, spends every single day doing a 10-minute exercise which he calls "priming". For, as Tony says,"Whenever you want to make a change or improve something, the first place you want to prove it is in your mental, emotional state."
The 10 minute priming routine:
- First minute: Do a breathing exercise where you start by sitting straight up and closing your eyes. Inhale deeply while you are raising your arms in the air as you would in jumping jacks, but from shoulder level, palms forward. Then, while exhaling deeply, bring your arms back to shoulder level, palms forward.
- First 3 minute interval: Think of three things you are grateful for and spend one minute on each, visualizing what you are grateful for. Tony likes one of the gratitudes to be simple, such as feeling the breeze on your face.
- Second 3 minute interval: Visualize light flowing through your body, starting from your head then gently flowing throughout your body while it is healing you, strengthening you. Then visualize that light flowing out of you, dispersing into the world around you, while you lovingly think of the people around you.
- Last 3 minutes: Take your top three goals and spend a minute on each, visualizing their completion. Feel how that completion feels for yourself and for those around you. And, while you are feeling that sense of completion, feel gratitude.
That’s it. In ten minutes, you can go from a weak state to an energized state. Or, as Tony says:
If you do something "from an exhausted state, from a frustrated state, from a weak state, it won't matter what you do. The thoughts are weak when you're in a weak place. The actions are weak. Priming, then, is intended to get you in an energized, positive state that will carry you through the day."