Imagine watching your favorite sport without the lines on the field. You turn on the game, and something is missing. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but for some reason, there feels like something’s just off. As you watch the game longer, you start to realize you can’t figure out where the player is on the field, because the lines are missing, the dirt isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and perhaps the nets are gone too. Your favorite team is running around a court or a field without any real semblance of an organized game, rather they are just running around, exerting energy, without a real purpose.
Then, all of a sudden, the lines show up, the nets are back in their place, and you understand the game you know and love as it starts to feel normal.
The difference? Context.
Context is the lines on the field in your career. It is what helps you understand where you are, what is happening around you, what matters, and what might be coming next. Without context, you are just running around the field trying to figure out why everyone else seems to know the play while you are still trying to find the scoreboard.
This happens all the time at work. A meeting feels tense, and you walk out wondering what you did wrong. A leader gives you short feedback, and you start building a whole story in your head. A teammate acts weird, and suddenly you are convinced something is off. Sometimes something is off, but sometimes you are just missing the lines on the field.
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The problem is that when you don’t have context, your brain starts creating it for you. It fills in the blanks with fear, insecurity, ego, old wounds, and whatever story you have trained yourself to believe. A missed Slack message becomes a sign you are being pushed out. A quiet boss becomes a signal you are in trouble. A tough quarter becomes proof that everything is falling apart.
This is why the people you surround yourself with matter so much.
If you are around people who constantly panic, gossip, assume the worst, and create drama out of every unknown moment, then your field will always feel chaotic. You will start seeing every moment through their lens. Their fear becomes your fear. Their version of the story becomes the one you carry around.
The opposite is true too. When you are around calm, grounded, thoughtful people, they help you see the field more clearly. They don’t pretend difficult moments are easy, but they also don’t let every difficult moment become a full-blown crisis. They can help you slow down, ask better questions, and separate what is actually happening from what you are imagining is happening.
This is one of the most underrated career skills there is. It is the ability to pause long enough to ask, “What context am I missing?” That one question can save you from overreacting, misreading people, sending the wrong email, making the wrong career move, or turning a small issue into a much bigger one.
The stories you are told at work also shape how you navigate your career.
If you are told leadership doesn’t care, you will start looking for proof that leadership doesn’t care. If you are told the company is a mess, you will start seeing mess everywhere. If you are told someone is difficult, you will walk into every interaction with them already prepared to be annoyed.
Some of those stories might be true, but some of them are just hand-me-down opinions from people who had their own experiences, their own baggage, and their own version of the game. You have to be careful about adopting someone else’s story before you have enough context to understand what is really going on. Their experience can be useful, but it doesn’t always have to become your reality.
Without context, your brain fills in the blanks with fear. Slow down, ask what you are missing, and make sure the story you are telling yourself is actually true.
Your career will have moments where the field feels confusing. The lines will disappear. The scoreboard won’t make sense. People will be running in different directions, and you will wonder if you are the only one who doesn’t understand the game. In those moments, don’t just react to what you see. Slow down, gather context, pay attention to who is shaping your thinking, and make sure the story you are telling yourself is actually true.