I was telling someone I mentor yesterday: You can decide your own learning path. I am saying learning path, and not growth path because growth has a lot of factors that you might not be able to control (org structure, politics, luck, macro).

Yes, you can ship products as a PM. But you can also read specs of other PMs. Chat with them and understand how they built some of their products.

You can read books on design. You can pull data of your own products, and you can definitely look at data of other products in the organization.

Taking notes is free. Take tons of notes. I have been writing online for 10+ years now. On various platforms.

Every time I write, I have to think. And repetition matters.

So you can have a far higher learning velocity than most people. This might not lead to an accelerated career, but you will have less imposter syndrome at your job.

Now coming to growth path. You can hack it too. I have joked to my managers in the past that I have notes on all of them. I know when people gaslight me. I know the games people play at the top. I look for signs. [Don’t do it in poker, but in real life.] I try to predict what games people are playing, and see if I am right. I tell myself I don’t need to play unnecessary games myself because what is the point of reading a thousand books, thinking and writing so much, if you just turn yourself into a 30-year-old Indian Robert Greene for that extra promotion. But I can. If I want.

So yeah, try to separate learning from your day job. It will lead to an interesting life for you.