Boundary judgments are those decisions we make that stand at the edge of what we think is possible and impossible. Think for a moment what you believe you can do. You have beliefs in you that say this far and no further. This is where I stop having ability. That is what I would call a boundary judgment. Say for a moment you are driving down the road and you notice a stop sign. The first thing you are inclined to do is to stop. This is a preprogrammed response to a typically non-complex boundary judgment. You have seen a sign and responded in accordance to what that sign represents to you.

A friend of mine from the United Kingdom once told me that when he came to Australia he was astonished at how people hammered through the orange light. One day on his way home from work he came to a light that went orange and was rear-ended by a man who was gearing up for the ‘hammer through‘ for the orange light. In Australia the amber ‘wait’ signal is widely interpreted as: ‘oh bugger it I have to hammer it to make it through before it turns red.’ In the part of the United Kingdom where my friend was from it meant time to slow down. Both of these are boundary judgments. So how can you recognise yours and what can you do about it?

The first thing to do is to recognise that you have a belief that stops you achieving and then deliberately do the opposite.  Say you have a fear of public speaking.  This fear is a boundary judgment that you has set itself up in your mind. You know need to deconstruct that belief and build a new one in it’s place.  That judgment you have in your mind about what stops you is the boundary fence (like the photo above).  It says ‘no more’.   Don’t pay attention to them.  Here are some others I have noticed in my life over the years.

Be creative but don’t go crazy 

Ever been given the so-called green light by your boss then told don’t go nuts?  Putting it another way, ‘be creative but don’t be creative’.   Now that’s a contradiction in terms and confusing as hell.

Do your study but don’t be too smart

So be smart and don’t study?  This is another boundary judgment on what we think is acceptable to us.  In reality it’s not that acceptable at all!  Why not just do your best and see what happens from there.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t

I really find this saying odd because it negates the possibility of a third solution… why have a devil at all?  Why continue to live with a problem than search for a way to get rid of it.  Why have the either/or logic box option here… why not just be happy and free?

Well that’s just the way it is around here

Translation: don’t try and change things around here because we don’t want things to change around here.   This is merely a perspective that has become a dominant belief in your mind.  Shift it out of there!

Remember whatever you want in life you can generally achieve by simply switching your beliefs.  What hinders us from seeing options in problems is not necessarily the realities… but what we think the realities are likely to be.