Phase 2. Life Aspirations. Six-phase method.

Phase 2 shifts the focus forward. The beneficiary moves from "where I am" to "what I want", but that shift requires careful support, because adults who have lived with persistent barriers often arrive with aspirations already reduced to what they believe they can afford to desire. The facilitator’s work consists of unearthing deeper and realistic aspirations without pushing the person towards fantasies disconnected from their context. This phase does not yet build an action plan. It clarifies which directions hold real meaning for the person, which have been shaped by fear, and which may later become concrete priorities.

1. Grounding: the synthesis of Phase 1

Before looking towards the future, the facilitator provides a synthesis of what was observed in Phase 1:

•      the dominant narrative;

•      the strong areas of the Wheel of Life;

•      the resources and limitations identified.

The beneficiary then corrects, clarifies or expands on this feedback. Without this grounding, work on the future risks constructing aspirations detached from the map already drawn.

2. The three futures

From there, three futures are explored.

The conditioned future

What life would be like if everything continued exactly as it is. It is not intended to provoke pessimism. It shows the consequences of changing nothing, and sometimes reveals that remaining where one is also constitutes a decision, even if it has never been formulated as such.

The future without limitations

For a few minutes, any physical, economic, social or personal barrier is suspended, and the person imagines what they would choose if none of those barriers existed. The exercise neither denies reality nor feeds impossible expectations. It serves to distinguish the limits that belong to the world from those that have gradually settled into the person’s way of thinking.

Many people with disabilities have spent years hearing what they supposedly could not do, and that accumulation narrows their aspirations long before they have had the chance to find out whether those aspirations were actually unattainable.

Two responses commonly emerge here, and both can be worked with:

The need is the real material; the fantasy is its amplified version.

The realistic future

Contact with reality is restored and a point of balance is sought between aspirations, resources, support and the limitations that genuinely exist. This is not about giving up what the person wants, but about building a path that can actually be travelled. A life project needs hope in order to begin, but it also needs decisions compatible with the circumstances of each moment.

3. The deep and realistic aspiration

Between the conditioned future and the idealised future lies the deep and realistic aspiration:

•      Deep, because it connects with authentic desire;

•      Realistic, because it takes into account the person’s context, resources and sustainable pace.

It is neither a desire cut down by fear nor a chimera detached from what is possible. It is a direction with enough force to motivate and enough concreteness to be developed in later phases.

4. Theoretical grounding: self-efficacy

This way of exploring the future draws on the theory of self-efficacy formulated by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura (1997), who showed that people act with greater perseverance when they believe they can influence outcomes through their own actions — a confidence that does not arise from positive thinking, but from:

•      accumulating small experiences of success;

•      observing others overcome similar situations;

•      seeing that goals can be achieved step by step.

The theory is almost three decades old, but its relevance in the specific field of disability and employment is confirmed by more recent research. A study by rehabilitation psychologist Hannah E. Fry and her team (Fry et al., 2020), published in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, found that among unemployed adults with disabilities, vocational self-efficacy is predicted above all by four factors:

1.       the ability to connect with others;

2.       family support;

3.       the degree of adjustment to one’s own disability;

4.       the level of fatigue.

These are not fixed traits but conditions that can be addressed through a support process. BeyondWheels follows the same logic by encouraging people to imagine different scenarios before choosing one and turning it into an action plan, while treating social connection and energy management as part of the work, rather than as background conditions.

5. Prioritisation: two tools

Most beneficiaries generate more than one aspiration, so the phase closes with two prioritisation tools.

The urgent–important matrix

It distinguishes:

•      what demands immediate attention because of pressure or risk;

•      what is essential to the broader life project;

•      what appears urgent without actually being so;

•      what can be postponed.

The Idea/Facto model

It observes how an aspiration changes when it is imagined compared with when it is experienced, placing each one in one of four quadrants:

Management consultant George T. Doran (1981) established that effective goals require specificity and verifiability — a principle that the Idea/Facto model anticipates by subjecting aspirations to a reality test before turning them into goals.

6. The most delicate point: the facilitator’s stance

The most delicate point in this phase is the facilitator’s reaction to the future without limitations. The temptation may be:

•      to reduce it — “be realistic”;

•      or to amplify it — “you can do anything”.

Both responses weaken the work. The appropriate stance is to listen without censorship and only then distinguish:

•      what is important in the desire;

•      what is realistic;

•      what may be exaggerated;

•      what first step would bring the person closer to what truly matters within that aspiration.

Psychologist and coach Kenneth Iversjo, who has tetraplegia (2026), warns against the mistake of rushing towards a decision. Phase 2 does not require committing to a single aspiration, but rather allowing the field of desires to emerge honestly and beginning to prioritise them; commitment to action comes in Phase 6. If the facilitator feels the urge to narrow that field immediately, it is worth asking what personal anxiety they are responding to.

7. Outputs of Phase 2

By the end of Phase 2, the facilitator has:

•      a completed three-futures table;

•      two or three deep and realistic aspirations identified;

•      the prioritisation matrix and Idea/Facto analysis applied;

•      a draft of Zone 2 of the Life Map.

Employment support specialist María Isabel Guijarro López and volunteer coach María de los Ángeles Tornero Gómez (Guijarro and Tornero, 2018) point out that this prioritisation process is decisive in preventing personalised pathways from becoming scattered across multiple fronts and in maintaining a sustainable focus.

Bibliography for this phase

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W. H. Freeman.Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35–36.

Fry, H. E., Norwood, A. A., Phillips, B. N., Fleming, A. R., Smith, G., and Lozano III, F. (2020). Predicting vocational self-efficacy of unemployed adults with disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 53(1), 105–117. https://doi.org/10.3233/JVR-201089

Guijarro López, M. I., and Tornero Gómez, M. A. (2018). Coaching mediante voluntariado como herramienta de apoyo al empleo de personas con discapacidad visual. Integración: Revista digital sobre discapacidad visual, 73, 65–89.

Iversjo, K. (2026). BeyondWheels: Manual de formación para facilitadores (v.02). Poraka Nova.