Life is Like a Rubik’s Cube

A friend recently shared an interesting thought with me and it's had me thinking today.

When do your best ideas usually show up? Is it hour five of staring at a spreadsheet while your mind turns to oatmeal? Or do the true breakthroughs come when you’re rinsing shampoo out of your hair, or cranking up your favorite song in the car?

Think of your personal life, too. Have you ever dissected a problem with your partner…going over every detail repeatedly…only to end up more confused than when you started? Then later (while making dinner or taking the dog out) the missing piece becomes obvious? We often treat these moments like random coincidences, but they aren’t coincidences at all.

Life and its many complicated decisions are like a Rubik’s Cube. You can’t solve it by obsessing over a single square. You have to approach life as a whole. Every twist changes the position of dozens of pieces at once. It’s the same with building our dreams. We often lock our attention onto one goal (enhancing our leadership, growing our income, finding a soulmate, getting in shape) and try over and over to force that one side of the cube into place. Oftentimes, the piece that actually unlocks everything is somewhere else altogether, and sometimes it falls into place while our focus is somewhere else.

Improving your health might give you the energizing clarity that transforms your business decisions. Repairing a strained relationship could remove the emotional friction that’s been draining your creativity. A small shift in one corner of life can suddenly bring the whole pattern into beautiful alignment.

For the past 30 years, I’ve owned businesses, led organizations, trained capable leaders to perform, lead, and people to rebuild when life shifts. Nowdays, I’m a Certified Life Mastery and Leadership Coach and the idea of life as Rubik Cube made me smile and gave me a great visual of the puzzle of life we are all trying to solve on a daily basis.

As a coach I love showing others how to step back and to see their dream vision the way an expert solves a Rubik’s Cube. When you see how the pieces of life interact, it becomes much easier to notice what’s truly out of place, and which moves you can make to bring your dreams to life. It always feels great to finally get 7 or 8 tiles of one color together on one side of the cube. Perhaps someday I'll get all 9 tiles of each color in the right spot. I hope your colors are aligning well!

How are you doing on your Rubik Cube of life?