The innocuous yet complex Rubik’s cube signifies not just the physical life, but more importantly the relationships that give meaning and purpose to life. How can we use this analogy to re-engineer our life for success & happiness!

The ubiquitous 3×3 cube, embodies the relationships you have in life, that give your life colour and meaning. 

Each of the 6 faces of the cube signifies a relationship block that makes us you who we are

• Family & Relatives
• Friends & Neighbours
• Self – your hobbies, Interests, Awareness, Development
• Colleagues / Teams / Employees / Co-students
• Superiors / Government / Educational Boards
• Customers / Partners / Teachers

Three on the personal side, three on the occupational / professional side. These 6 relationships are the environment that you live and operate in.

This is Life-Balance: The Balance of Personal Life & Occupational Life. You need to keep the balance by focusing on all of them equitably.

How do you make these relationships work for you?

When you try to solve the Rubik’s cube, you realise that your ability to solve it is severely limited if you focus on completing one face at a time. The trick to solving it is focusing on all faces equitably.

It’s the same with life, when you want to make sense of your life, you need to appreciate that all of the relationship blocks are important and need to be given equitable attention.

Therefore, what should you do to make these relationships work for you?

Well, there is a method to the madness, just as solving the cube is a step-by-step objective process with due attention to all faces and not just any one face, making your life effective is also a step-by step objective process, with your overall life in mind, not just any one kind of relationship.

Yes, you can engineer your life for success – step-by-step!

Let’s start at the foundation and goal of your life, the cube viewed from a different angle illustrates them quite revealingly:

• The edge (point) right at the bottom is You, the foundation and the fulcrum
• The edge (point) right at the top is your overarching purpose in life, which is usually simple yet elusive – Happiness, think about it, everything you do, once stripped off the frills of achievement (money, designation etc.), is ultimately to achieve happiness

So, how do you achieve your purpose? What should you do? How should you go about your life to ensure your happiness?

There are but 6 keys that open the locks to the different relationships you form, Keys illustrated by 6 other edges (points) of the cube that lie between You & Your purpose! 

What do these 6 edges signify?

• People (how well you manage your people relationships)
• Communication (how well you manage your communication with people)
• Outcomes / Performance (how well you manage the desired outcomes / performance from each relationship)
• Goals (how well have you articulated your goals with milestone markers to guide you on the way)
• Vision (what do you want each relationship to remember you for)
• Commitment (how committed are you to your purpose and each of the relationships you form in life)

Interestingly, 

The first 4 lie on the same plane, and coincidently all of these are skills that can be learnt, skills that can be engineered by you – People Management Skills, Communication Management Skills, Performance Management Skills, Goal Articulation Skills – These are competencies that determine the speed & degree of your success.

The next 2 are on a different plane, not always in the line of your direct sight yet intrinsic to success. They are about you as a person than just the skills that you learn. They make you who you are. They are your internal environment – which is unique to each of us.  They determine the sustainability of your success!

These 2 have a symbiotic relationship with the other 4, akin to the classic chicken or egg relationship with the other 4.

Prompting the question – Which should you focus on first – the 2 or the 4 or all 6.

Thankfully, it’s not so complicated, since all six are interconnected, therefore whichever you start with, you will traverse the other 5 – provided you stay committed to yourself and your purpose!

Let’s now look at another interesting phenomenon that is witnessed when you spin the cube, you would notice these 6 are in flux. However, amongst all this flux, the two things that don’t change are YOU and the Purpose! – Similarly, you need to continuously change, evolve & upskill yourself to keep up with the flux you face in everyday life.

Did you notice another interesting aspect of the 3×3 cube analogy? Each of these 6 relationship blocks and each of the keys have you as the fulcrum! You are the anchor and the core, playing different roles in each of the relationships, without YOU, there is nothing!

Are there times you feel as if life is just flowing past and you are just a bystander to your own life, it could be quite analogous to the 2×2 cube, it has the same 6 faces, the same 8 edges. However, what’s missing is YOU at the centre of each relationship that makes up your life – YOU need to get back into the picture!

We are IPA Enablers, we focus on augmenting YOUR effectiveness.

We work with

• Organisations to enhance the effectiveness of their human capital and
• Educational institutions to enhance the employability of their students

IPA Enablers

From Knowledge to Impact

We are Enablers of:
• Business result oriented behavioural & leadership learning
• Frameworks for applying concepts@work
• Learning quality & skill uptake assessment
• Measurable behaviour change
• RoI for the learning program
• Global delivery in leading languages

Talk to us to find out how we can assist you to engineer desired behaviours in your teams!

Ajay Alex
+91 9008310567
ajay(at)ipaenablers.com