The year didn’t start the way I expected it to.

It started with me losing my sense of identity.

And I don’t mean that lightly. I mean, truly not recognizing who I was anymore. It was 5 months post-C-section delivery period.

Before that, I was at a high point in my career. I was leading product at a startup, operating at a senior executive level, carrying responsibility, making decisions, feeling capable, and grounded in my professional identity.

That chapter mattered to me because it gave me confidence. It reminded me of how far I had come, especially when I came from nothing.

Then I found out I was going to be a mother.

In my first trimester, my body did something I had never experienced before. I’ve worked 18–20 hour shifts on my feet. I’ve worked retail, in convenience stores, etc., to pay for college. I’ve pushed through physical exhaustion many times in my life.

But this was different.

This wasn’t just tiredness. It was exhaustion mixed with brain fog. I could feel that I wasn’t fully myself. My thinking wasn’t sharp. My energy wasn’t there. And for the first time, I didn’t trust my own capacity in the way I always had.

So I decided to step back last year in November last year and take an extended maternity leave. I decided to meet my family and live in India for a couple of months.

I told myself it was the right thing to do for my health, for the company, for the people I worked with. But emotionally, it felt like I was letting everyone down. I had never been in a position where my body was the one making decisions for me.

After delivery came what they call ‘the fourth trimester’. Recovery from a C-section. Hormones trying to settle. Medication that doesn’t just wear off overnight. And underneath all of that, a few personal things too.

I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself.

My body had changed. My hair had changed. But more than that, something internal had shifted. I wasn’t the woman I had been used to seeing reflected back at me.

During that break, I did a lot of quiet soul-searching. Not in a dramatic way. Not like packing bags and off to Bali.

…Just in the everyday moments of trying to understand who I was becoming.

What Dirt and Seeds Taught Me About Patience

Outside of work, I did something unexpected this year. I started gardening.

I built it from scratch. It was a lot of physical labor. Messy. Very Slow. I grew close to 100 pounds of food all thru summer. It took real effort. It failed in some places. It surprised me in others.

Here’s what nobody tells you about gardening: you can’t force it. You can’t check on a seed every hour and expect it to grow faster. You can’t will a tomato plant into production through sheer hustle.

You show up.

You tend to it.

You give it time.

And then, when you’re not looking, something shifts. A seed becomes a leaf and multiple leaves, and after a few weeks, a flower becomes a fruit.

It taught me patience. It taught me consistency without urgency. It reminded me that growth doesn’t happen because you’re watching it obsessively. It happens because you create the conditions for it, and then you trust the process.

In many ways, it mirrored what this year has been teaching me about myself.

One belief that shifted for me this year is this: without systems, I can’t succeed. Not in my career. Not in my personal life.

I can hustle, and I am a hustler. That part of me hasn’t gone away. But hustle without structure just leads to burnout. And I’ve learned that the hard way.

The garden taught me that. Some days I watered. Some days I weeded. Some days I just walked through and observed. But the system I built; the raised beds, the watering, natural fertilizer (no bone or blood meal used), the companion planting; that’s what made 100 pounds of food possible. Not the days I worked myself into exhaustion.

Oh and I am a good cook, and I tried lots of new recipes this year with all the home grown organic produce.

Here are some glimpses

The Moment I Almost Quit

There was a moment this year when I almost gave up.

It was early in my job search. And for the first time in my career, everything felt… off.

I had never experienced the market this way before. In the past, when I switched roles, recruiters reached out to me. Conversations happened naturally. Things moved. This time, I was the one reaching out. And most of the time, I heard nothing back.

Silence.

At the same time, Linkedin, blind, reddit was relentless. Layoffs. Every day. Highly talented people, people I deeply respect, suddenly available and competing for the same roles. The talent pool felt overwhelming. The competition felt impossible.

I remember thinking, What is going on? Why does this feel so hard?

Even when I did get callbacks, I failed interviews. Not once or twice, but repeatedly. Nothing was landing. Nothing was clicking. It felt like I couldn’t even crack the first layer of the system, let alone make it through.

That was the lowest point for me.

Not because I doubted my skills, but because I couldn’t understand the rules of the game anymore. The market had shifted, and I hadn’t caught up yet. And when you don’t understand the system you’re operating in, it’s incredibly disorienting.

There were days I questioned whether I was doing something fundamentally wrong. Whether the timing was just bad. Whether I had lost something I used to have. But eventually, something changed.

I stopped approaching the search the way I always had. I stepped back and treated it like a system to be decoded, not a reflection of my worth. I experimented. I adjusted. I paid attention to what worked and what didn’t.

And then, slowly, I cracked it.

It took me about three months of preparation and interviews to land the role I’m in now. When I shared what I learned on Instagram, that post went viral.

Thousands of people saved it. I turned it into a series because it was clear I wasn’t alone. So many people were feeling the same confusion, the same discouragement, the same quiet panic.

That moment didn’t magically fix everything. But it reminded me of something important: when nothing is working, it might not be because you’re broken.

In Oct I joined Meta (AI team) in a Product Ops role, and I’ve thought a lot about that decision. A lot of people view growth as strictly linear. The next title. The next rung. The next step up.

But I don’t see growth that way anymore.

Sometimes growth is lateral. Sometimes it’s about placing yourself where the learning compounds, even if it doesn’t look impressive on paper.

This role aligns with where I want to go. It keeps me close to AI-forward work, systems, and execution. And right now, that matters more to me.

If I’m being honest, even as I look ahead to 2026, there’s still uncertainty. I don’t have a perfectly defined answer yet for how or where I want to shape my career next. I don’t have a five-year plan neatly mapped out. And for someone who has always been very driven and very intentional, that uncertainty has taken some getting used to.

What I do know is this: I’m genuinely excited about where I am right now. I’m thrilled to be working at Meta at this stage of my life. I’m part of an AI-forward organization that’s actively building processes where AI and human judgment work together. I get to be close to that work, close to how decisions are made, close to how systems are evolving.

And that excites me.

Writing, Creating and Showing Up

The newsletter is a big one.

I’m genuinely proud of how consistently I’ve shown up here. I’ve written close to 30 issues this year—THAT IS A HUGE FEAT for me—and I did it without forcing myself into a rigid weekly cadence that would have burned me out. That was intentional.

I didn’t want writing to become a chore. Especially…

As I’m a mom to an active toddler. I was coming back into the workforce after maternity leave. I was interviewing. I was trying to hold space for my career, my family, and my own sense of identity at the same time.

Some weeks, my brain exploded with ideas and the writing flowed. Other weeks, it didn’t. And instead of pushing through just to hit a schedule, I chose balance.

Because it meant I could still prioritize the newsletter without resenting it. It meant writing stayed meaningful. It meant I could show up honestly, not mechanically. And I’m proud of that restraint just as much as I’m proud of the output.

Here are my most loved essays

• AI Track: ranging from prompt engineering to PM Operating System.

• Product Track: From mental model to become AI PM to Storytelling to Product Manager’s Moat in 2026

• Leadership Track: From understanding your Manager’s communication style to Advocating for inclusion

• Interview Tips and Prompts:

  • Linkedin Optimization

  • Mock Interview Loop Prompt

  • Flip Interview Bias in your favor with AI

  • Mock Interview Prompt Pack

  • How to Interview for large companies vs startups

  • The most important 90 secs of your interview

Social Media

Instagram has been interesting this year.

I feel like I’ve finally figured a few things out after my last few posts that have gone viral consistently. I have a better understanding of what works on the platform, how video content needs to be structured, how attention actually flows, and how AI is changing the way content is created and consumed.

You’ll see me show up more. More video. More consistency. Less overthinking.

LinkedIn, on the other hand… has been complicated.

That platform has changed a lot. The vibe has shifted. While it’s true that decision-makers, hiring managers, and buyers are there, it’s also become saturated with cheap AI-generated content and performative thought leadership. A lot of “look how smart I am” energy. A lot of noise.

And honestly, it stopped feeling good.

LinkedIn is where I started writing. I owe that platform a lot. But over the last few months, I needed a pause. A reset. Space to decide how I want to show up there next, if I do at all. I know I’ll come back stronger and more intentional, but I didn’t want to force it just because I “should.”

The courses have been grounding.

I’ve built two courses so far. The first is a beginner-friendly product management course for people who genuinely don’t know where to start. That course has existed for a while, and it continues to serve its purpose.

The second course, Become an AI-Powered PM, is newer and much more reflective of where I am now. I launched it this year. I’ve run 2 live cohorts. I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. So far, with 50 paying students.

My goal is to grow that to 300 students by the end of 2026. That’s a stretch. I know that. But I also know the value people are getting, the feedback they’ve shared, and the real “aha” moments that keep coming up.

What I’ve realized is this: AI is moving so fast that trying to keep up with everything is a guaranteed path to burnout. Models change weekly. Tools become outdated before you finish learning them. New launches drop constantly. For someone who’s also a parent, an employee, a writer, and a human being, that pace is unsustainable.

So I made a deliberate choice.

Instead of chasing every new tool, I focused on what’s evergreen and required fundamental thinking.

• How to think with AI
• How to work with it day to day
• How to integrate it into real workflows
• How to reduce fear and friction

That’s what my course is built around. It’s not long. It’s not overwhelming. You can get through it in a few hours and actually use what you learn immediately. Because people don’t have 20 extra hours. People have lives. that’s my hypothesis anyway.

AI has created a lot of anxiety this year. For everyone. Including me. The uncertainty, the layoffs, the constant “will my job still exist” question. I get it.

That’s why I keep the course accessible. That’s why I encourage people to reach out, ask questions, and work through it with me. Because the sooner you take the first step, the less scary it becomes.

Why I Keep Sharing

I’ve shared my journey publicly for one reason: I didn’t have a roadmap when I started. And you know what’s funny, I still don’t (if one day I want to become a CEO).

But I have built a network, I have built resources, I have built skills to be able to figure out things fast, have built resilience, and can afford to make mistakes and share with all. AND I might be just a few steps ahead of someone who is trying to get in product or crack a senior role in a company or get back into the workforce after maternity. so i hope it might just help that person.

I came to the U.S. as an immigrant. I entered tech almost accidentally. No one in my family had worked in corporate roles. No one could explain how careers worked here in the US. I learned by doing. By failing. By figuring things out late.

At one point in my life, I was told I’d never even make $1,000 a month. That it would take generations for my family to build any real financial stability. I still remember how that landed in my body.

So when I write, it’s not for motivation. It’s not for branding. It’s because I want someone else to read it and think: if she figured it out, maybe I can too.

I genuinely come from nothing.

This year stretched me. As a mom. As a professional. As a creator. As a human trying to keep up with a rapidly changing world.

But it also grounded me.

I learned where I need structure and where I need flexibility. I learned that growth doesn’t always look loud. And I learned that showing up imperfectly, but consistently, compounds in ways you don’t see until you pause and look back.

These reflections, and the lessons that came from them, are what I’m carrying forward.

And I’m grateful you’re here to witness it.

p.s will be back next year with my usual product, AI, Interview posts to help you succeed in your product career.

~ Happy New Year 2026 ~

what beliefs shifted for you this year?