How to Stay Motivated as a Product Manager During Layoffs

Every morning, I wake up to the same chaos.

Another LinkedIn notification about Sally losing her coveted big-tech job. More green "Open to work" banners flooding my feed from people I know and people I don't. Headlines screaming about yet another company eliminating their entire PM org (I'm looking at you, Nike). And don't even get me started on the endless think pieces declaring that we should just eliminate product managers altogether.

As a product manager watching this industry burn around me, I'm left asking: How do I rise above this noise?

How do I wake up with hope instead of dread? How do I still take pride in solving the right problems when companies are questioning if my role should even exist?

If you're a PM spiraling about your career's future, listen up. I don't have all the answers, but here's what's keeping me grounded while combining brutal realism with stubborn hope.

Choose Your Hard (Because Everything Is Hard)

Working in tech is hard. But the way I see it, so is everything else. In this country, you have to choose your hard.

With my public health background, I pivoted into tech years ago. Like many first daughters of immigrant Nigerian parents, I was destined to go to medical school. But that wasn't my dream. That's not the hard I wanted to choose.

Instead of healthcare, I'm choosing health tech. But let me tell you something…the tech industry is HARD.

• Keeping up with AI and emerging tech is exhausting
• Networking to recession-proof your career feels like a second job
• And let's not forget, layoffs can completely blind side you

I learned this the brutal way. Early in my career when I was at Microsoft, I invested my own money to fly to Seattle and meet my remote team face-to-face. I wanted to build relationships as the new person and finally meet my manager in person.

The Monday after I returned to Georgia, I was laid off. It was the biggest career slap in the face I had ever experienced. Getting laid off was hard.

But you know what's also hard? Medical school.

• 8+ years of education
• MCAT retakes until you get the "right" score
• Matching into residency for 4 more years
• Accumulating hundreds of thousands in debt you might never pay off

Both paths are hard. But the important thing here is that I knew that this was going to be difficult and I chose this path. I'm not the first to choose this, and I won't be the last either.

What I'm Actually Doing to Stay Sane During Layoffs

Take social media breaks and limit the noise
I deactivated my personal Instagram for the very first time. And as someone who not only builds products but also builds brands using social media, this is a pretty big deal. But those dopamine hits were keeping me in bed, scrolling instead of executing. Sometimes you have to cut the distractions to hear your own thoughts.

Networking With Purpose
Not just collecting LinkedIn connections, but actually talking to other PMs. I joined Product Coffee, an Atlanta-based Product Management mastermind, last year to commune with other PMs and consultants. Being able to bounce ideas off of each other, refer one another, learn and grow together makes the inbetween journey a lot less lonely and scary.

Upskilling Like My Career Depends On It (Because It Does)
Instead of doom-scrolling on IG and LinkedIn, I'm doubling down on learning. I just wrapped up a SQL course on Codecademy and now I'm diving deep into HL7 (Health Level Seven) to strengthen my skill set for the healthcare and healthtech roles I'm targeting. But here's the fun part—every week, I spend at least 3 hours playing around with AI agents. Replit has become my playground! Fun fact: this entire website was built using Replit. While everyone else is panicking about AI taking over, I'm learning to work *with* it. I also recently created a mockup of a redesign of the CVS patient portal using Replit, inspired by learning about CVS' needs of designing a more proactive billing experienve for customers. You can view this here: CVS Patient Portal Redesign Mockup When the market is tough, the solution isn't to fully go ghost. It's to become undeniably valuable.

Remember that a title is just a title
Here's the truth bomb: if product management disappears tomorrow, so what?

The role barely existed 20 years ago. When I got ready to join Microsoft, I applied for a "Program Manager" position. By onboarding day, they'd changed it to "Product Manager" due to some company restructuring.

Titles evolve. Companies reorganize. But the skills we've built—leadership, problem-solving, strategic thinking—those transfer everywhere.

And to be quite honest, I hope the PM role does evolve.

Do you know how exhausting it is explaining that product management isn't project management? Sure, there is some overlap, but they're not the same. There have been times when I explain my day-to-day with other PMs: conducting user interviews, designing workshops, writing feature specs, drafting roadmaps, planning sprints—you know, the works. And it's been rare to find a PM that does exactly what I do at another company. Some of us are leading sprint ceremonies, creating and testing assumptions, and delivering solutions directly to customers on a regular basis. Others are creating slide decks and booking meetings with the right stakeholders. Some of us are doing it all! Some standardization would do this industry a massive good.

But here's what won't change: businesses will always need people who can identify the right problems to solve, not just execute solutions. Whether we're called Product Managers, Problem Solvers, or Wizards, I really don't care.

What matters is that you choose your hard intentionally, limit the noise that doesn't serve you, and remember that your value extends far beyond any job title.