In my last essay, I introduced the second pillar of my UNREDUCED framework: Expand the Field. Once we’ve named the constraint, however imperfectly, we can begin looking beyond our circumstances and broadening our attention. But what does expanding the field actually mean?
There are several kinds of expansion possible, and the most obvious is external. When we expand the field externally, we begin noticing opportunities, resources, people, and experiences that might have been available to us all along but that we missed because we were so focused on what we couldn’t do instead of what was still possible. I talked about that kind of expansion in the Expand the Field essay, but that isn’t where expanding the field ends. In fact, it may not be where it should begin.
Expanding the field also means looking inward more carefully and asking whether the way we’ve come to understand ourselves deserves a second look. It means recognizing that our first explanation may not be the only one available, or that even if it is right, it may not be the explanation that continues to serve us as we move forward. That may sound frustrating, or even a little redundant, because after all the work of naming the constraint, it would be natural to think we had finally arrived at the correct explanation. If we’ve identified the thing that’s truly constraining us, are we now saying that explanation isn’t real or correct? I don’t think so, because naming the constraint was never about arriving at a final answer. It was the first step in learning how to examine our explanations and beliefs more carefully, teaching us to look beneath the obvious, question what first appeared to be true, and become more comfortable with the idea that our understanding can continue to grow. The first explanation isn’t necessarily false; it may simply be incomplete.
Although we first encounter this idea while naming the constraint, it applies much more broadly to the beliefs and explanations we create about ourselves and our lives. Those explanations help us make sense of uncertainty and give us something to rally around when our circumstances feel confusing or painful; even an imperfect explanation can feel better than having no explanation at all or believing we have no control over what’s happening in our lives. Our explanations restore not only a sense of understanding but often some sense of control. When something happens that we weren’t expecting, we wonder what it means, or – worse – what it says about us. We arrive at an understanding, and too often we stop there. The problem is that sometimes the explanation becomes more than an explanation: it becomes our reality and, eventually, even our identity. And that’s where the field begins to shrink.
I’ve often written about caregiving because that’s where the UNREDUCED framework began for me, but this pattern appears in many other places. Years ago, I was an avid skydiver, and I loved the flying, the challenge, the community, and the identity that came with being someone who jumped out of airplanes. After repeated shoulder injuries, however, I had to quit, and the reality of the situation was pretty straightforward: I couldn’t skydive anymore because of my injuries. But somewhere along the way, I created another explanation in my head: I’m not that adventurous person anymore. Without realizing it, I had attached my identity to one specific expression of adventure, and as I let go of skydiving, I also began letting go of the idea that I was someone who sought challenge, explored the world, and embraced new experiences. I became more sedentary, partly because my shoulders were injured, certainly, but also because my explanation had become larger than the injury itself.
Eventually, I began questioning that belief: if I could no longer skydive, did that really mean I was no longer adventurous, or had I simply confused one activity with an entire part of who I was? Once I asked myself that question, other possibilities became obvious. Different adventures, different ways of expressing my curious spirit, different expansions of my identity. Paddleboarding, hiking, VR quests, and other experiences I might never have discovered if I had continued skydiving became new expressions of adventure, curiosity, and wonder. Losing one expression of that part of myself unexpectedly made room for many others.
The same thing can happen at work. Suppose we don’t receive a promotion we had hoped for and our first explanation is, “I’m not leadership material”, or perhaps we look externally and decide, “This company doesn’t value me”. Either explanation may contain some truth, but neither is necessarily the whole picture. Maybe we weren’t ready for that particular role, but the gaps we need to fill are things we can learn; maybe the person who got the job had experience we don’t have yet; maybe our strengths point toward a different kind of leadership than the position we were pursuing; maybe the company really doesn’t recognize what we have to offer, and the more useful question is whether another organization would; or maybe not getting the promotion frees us to reconsider a path we had been following largely because it was the obvious next step. Each possibility changes the field, but once we’ve settled on our first explanation, we often stop asking what else might be true, and when we stop asking, we also stop seeing the doors those other truths might open.
There’s nothing wrong with explanations. As human beings, we need them to make sense of what’s going on around us. The potential reduction comes when we stop after the first one. Expanding the field isn’t about collecting more explanations or endlessly replacing one explanation with another, but about staying curious and remaining willing to ask, “What else could also be true?” Every explanation may help us understand part of what’s happening, but very few can help us understand all of it.
Sometimes today’s explanation will still be the best explanation tomorrow, and sometimes it won’t. Another experience, a conversation, or just the passage of time may allow us to see something we couldn’t see before. So before you decide that you’ve explained yourself, ask whether you’ve simply found the first explanation that makes you feel comfortable enough to stop looking.
So I’ll leave you with this question:
What explanation about yourself have you believed for so long that you’ve forgotten it was just the first one?
Published 12 July 2026 - UNREDUCED™ Pillar Two