Phase 3. Limitations and Reframing. Six-phase method.

What can I do despite this?

Guiding question: What barriers stand between this person and what they want — and which can be managed, reduced, compensated for, verified or seen differently?

In Phase 2, the BeyondWheels process moved from the present towards the future. The person identified aspirations that feel meaningful and realistic. Phase 3 asks the next question: what stands between where I am and where I want to go?

This is a delicate part of the process because not every barrier has the same nature. Some are objective and require practical solutions. Others are conclusions shaped by past experience. Many contain both. The aim is neither to say that everything depends on attitude nor to treat every limitation as fixed, but to understand it precisely enough to see what can still be done.

Not every limitation is the same

Some limitations are real: an inaccessible workplace, unreliable adapted transport, financial constraints, a required qualification or a functional restriction affecting certain tasks. These barriers cannot be removed through positive thinking. They call for adaptation, support, technology, learning or an alternative route.

Other limitations contain more interpretation: “I am too old to learn something new”, “Nobody will hire someone like me”, or “If I need help, I am not independent”. These ideas may come from genuine experiences of rejection, discrimination or overprotection. Calling them “perceived” does not mean imaginary; it means that a conclusion from previous experience may now be shaping situations that have not yet happened.

Most barriers are mixed. “Nobody will hire me because I have a disability” may contain a real experience of discrimination and, at the same time, a prediction about every future employer. The real part should not be minimised; the prediction should not automatically be accepted as fact.

Separating the fact from the conclusion

The facilitator does not decide for the person which limitations are real. The task is to make the barrier more precise: What exactly is happening? Which part can be verified? Which part is a conclusion? Has it always happened? Are there exceptions? What support or adaptation would make a difference?

For example, “I cannot start a business” may hide two different issues: “I do not know enough about accounting or taxation” and “therefore I am not capable of becoming self-employed”. The first may require learning or professional support. The second needs to be tested rather than treated as a final truth.

Vague barriers close entire areas of possibility. Precise barriers can be worked with.

Reframing without denying reality

Once a limitation is understood more clearly, reframing can help. Reframing does not mean replacing a difficult reality with a positive sentence. It means asking whether another credible interpretation or context opens possibilities.

Someone may think: “If I need assistance, I am not autonomous.” The need for support may be real, but another interpretation is possible: organising the support I need in order to make my own decisions can also be part of autonomy.

Sometimes the change is contextual. A person who cannot remain in an office for eight continuous hours may function well with remote work, shorter periods, flexible schedules or project-based work. The question shifts from “Why can’t I do this?” to “Under what conditions could I do something in this direction?”

This does not make structural barriers disappear. It simply prevents one interpretation from becoming the only possible reading of reality.

When reframing becomes invalidation

Reframing only works when it is credible. If the person rejects it, that reaction is useful information: perhaps it came too early, perhaps the real difficulty has not yet been acknowledged, or perhaps the alternative does not fit.

Phrases such as “You shouldn’t think like that”, “If you really wanted it, you could” or “There are no limits” are not reframing. They minimise experience and place responsibility entirely on the individual.

A useful reframing should have some basis in reality: an accommodation, assistive technology, a training opportunity, another work format, a support service, an example of someone in similar conditions or even an exception in the person’s own experience.

From barrier to possibility

Phase 3 should not end with a different way of talking about a limitation. It should lead to a different way of responding to it. A barrier may require management, adaptation, learning, support, verification, a change of strategy — or sometimes letting go of an option that simply does not fit.

Not every barrier needs to be “overcome”. Sometimes recognising that one route is unsuitable frees the person to explore another.

The central question is therefore deliberately practical: “What can I do despite this?” And just as importantly: “What support, adaptation or change in the environment would make the next step possible?”

The purpose is not to imagine a future without limitations, but to prevent limitations from becoming the entire definition of what is possible. This prepares the way for Phase 4, where the focus shifts to capabilities, resources and support that may already exist — even when the person has stopped seeing them.