Ask HN: How to understand the “big picture” of your own work?

I have worked for businesses that lean towards the very small side. This has become somewhat of a hassle to me, especially when I turned into telecommute work, because I have hardly anyone to talk to about software development process and life cycle, and what impact our work has whenever we finish a milestone. If someone tells me to do XYZ, I just do XYZ without giving it much more thought but nobody explicitly states on the why this is important to company goals.

Now with eight years of work under my belt, people expect someone of my tenure to be able to demonstrate knowledge of the big picture. They will want to hire someone who makes waves.

When I was just starting out my expected career path would have taken me into a senior, then lead developer position, and probably become a software architect. But right now, eight years of work later, I am nowhere near capable to hold any of those roles. I couldn't make waves, even at a small company.

My work history and resume give the impression that my career has stalled. I honestly don't know what looks worse- an inexperienced graduate who's gone a year without work, or an experienced person whose career has stalled and currently doesn't have work.

But anyhow, I'm trying to write some "impact statements" on previous jobs and my mind's drawing a blank. How can I understand how it helped the company when so many aspects were black-boxed from me?