This week's highlights:

🧠 The Toll of an Aspirational Vision of Product Management
❤️ Product Management and the Imposter Syndrome
🤖 Why You Should Consider a Career in Product Management
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​and more.

Let's face it - Being a product manager can take a toll on one's mental health.

As a PM, we constantly switch context, exposing our inadequacies frequently. We are always trying to juggle multiple elements simultaneously, ensuring that none of them fall behind. This can take a toll on us.

It is fast-paced, requires us to always be on our toes (sometimes literally as we switch from one meeting room to another), pushes us to wear multiple hats, and more.

The image below sums it up so well. We have our toes dipped in every f*&cking aspect, which can be exhausting.

If you can take one thing from this issue of Somehow I Product, it should be that you are not alone ❤️

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🧠 The Toll of an Aspirational Vision of Product Management​

A while back, I came upon Jason's twitter thread on mental health in product management.

He shares some of the struggles that product managers have to deal with openly in the thread. As a product manager, one is always trying to do too much, shifting from micro to macro tasks constantly while trying to be five steps ahead of everything.

Jason Knight @onejasonknight Let's talk about mental health in #prodmgmt because, whatever some naysayers might say, this is an incredibly tricky job. Even when it's going well it's hard! And it's very often not going well 🧵 January 28th 2022 46 Retweets 237 Likes

Check out the thread 👆

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❤️ Product Management and the Imposter Syndrome​

​Imposter​ syndrome is a feeling of inadequacy that persists despite the evident success, according to Harvard Business Review. As a PM, we sometimes make decisions with inadequate information, which leads us to doubt ourselves constantly.

I've been a PM for more than half a decade and still struggle with imposter syndrome.

Reports show that around 40% of product managers experience imposter syndrome frequently or all the time and only 8% of product people say that they never experienced it.

The nature of our role, along with the ambiguous guidelines around what it is that we actually do, can leave us easily frustrated in a world with defined boundaries and roles.

In his post, Haste shares some insights into why product managers are more inclined to feel like an imposter and some of the steps we can take to tackle it.

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🤖 Why You Should Consider a Career in Product Management​

While there are elements that might make product management a stressful job, it still is quite fun.

After spending a few years as a PM, in this post, Lilly shares a couple of key reasons why she thinks product management should be a consideration for all.

She shares 4 main reasons:

1. Learning
2. Flexibility
3. Entry Requirements
4. Satisfaction

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Book of the Week:

No Hard Feelings by Mollie West Fosslien, Liz, Duffy

This book is not specific to product management, but is still a great read. The book walks through how to effectively express your emotions at the office, find fulfillment, and define work-life balance on your own terms.

In the book, Fosslien & Duffy talks about research that can help in dealing with emotions and how to use them as a tool for decision making and more.

We are all showing up at work everyday and this book helps us learn how to embrace a variety of emotions that everyone around us (including us) are going through.

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Job Board:

Entry - ​Associate Product Manager @ Cohere Health​
Intermediate - Product Manager, Home Timeline @ Twitter​
Advanced - Group Product Manager, NFT @ Coinbase​

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If you are enjoying this newsletter, please spread the word and share the joy with others as well 😀

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