Find Your Anchor | One Mile Lab

Last week I closed my laptop in the middle of a meeting and just sat there for a minute.

It was another alignment call — the kind where fifteen people discuss what we’re going to do now that everything we planned to do has been put on hold. A big reorg is happening. Leadership is changing. Reporting lines are being redrawn. The product roadmap we spent months building is shelved while the org figures out “convergence” — which, in practice, means picking which tech stack survives and which one doesn’t.

As a PM, there’s a specific kind of helplessness in this phase. You can’t ship. You can’t plan. You can’t even argue for the thing you believe in, because the decision isn’t about what’s best for the product — it’s about what’s best for the new org structure. So you sit in meetings. You wait. You answer Slack messages about timelines that don’t exist yet.

And in the background, the rumor mill runs at full speed. Layoffs. Who’s safe. Who’s not. People start refreshing their LinkedIn. Hallway conversations that used to be about product ideas are now about survival. You can feel the anxiety in the air, this constant low hum that makes it hard to think straight.

I’ve been working for eight years. This isn’t my first reorg.

But something about this time made me stop and actually sit with the question I usually push aside: what am I doing here?

Not “here” as in this company. “Here” as in — what is work, to me? After eight years, what has it actually been?

I know what it’s been practically. It’s the reason my family lives comfortably. That sounds simple, but it’s not small. The steadiness of a paycheck, the ability to not worry about rent or school fees — that’s a kind of freedom, even if it doesn’t feel like one when you’re stuck in your fourth alignment meeting of the day.

And I know what it’s been for my growth. Big companies hand you problems you’d never find on your own. Problems that are messy, political, ambiguous — the kind that don’t have clean solutions, only trade-offs. Every one of those problems left a mark on me. Not always visible, but real. I’m sharper than I was three years ago. More patient. Better at reading a room, picking my battles, knowing when to push and when to wait.

Each promotion along the way felt like a quiet confirmation: you’re growing. People can see it. That mattered more than I expected it to.

But lately, I’ve started to feel the ceiling, the ceiling on meaning. The gap between what I’m capable of and what I’m actually spending my days on. There are so many things at work that feel meaningless but mandatory. Rituals that exist because they’ve always existed. Processes designed for coordination, not creation.

And the question that keeps surfacing, the one I can’t quite answer: Where should I go next? What should I actually be working on?

I want to find something that uses all of me. Not 30% on docs, 20% on stakeholder management, and 50% on navigating org politics. I want the kind of work where the problem is hard, the ownership is real, and I can see the person it helps.

I don’t have that yet. I’m not sure where to find it.

But here’s what I do know, and maybe this is enough for now.

Reorgs are loud. They’re designed to make you reactive — to check your email, read the signals, position yourself. The anxiety is almost gravitational. It pulls you into a mode where you’re constantly scanning for threats instead of building toward something.

I’ve learned, through a few rounds of this, that the worst thing you can do is let the chaos set your direction.

Your life is still yours. The choices are still yours. What you build on the side. What skills you sharpen. What you think about when no one’s assigning you a task. A reorg can change your reporting line, but it can’t change your course — unless you hand over the wheel.

So I keep coming back to this phrase that’s been stuck in my head: find your anchor.

Not an anchor in a job title or a team name or a roadmap — those things change every eighteen months. An anchor in what you’re building toward, for yourself. Something the org chart can’t touch.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve found mine. But I know the direction. Stay aware of the industry shifting around you. Understand where you stand. Don’t mistake busyness for progress, and don’t mistake stability for purpose.

The world is loud right now. AI is rewriting the rules. Companies are reorganizing around it. The ground that felt solid two years ago doesn’t anymore. In all that noise, I think the people who come out well aren’t the fastest reactors — they’re the ones who know what they’re anchored to.