Learning and practising actual 'decision making' as a junior PM
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We PMs are taught a lot of buzzwords and frameworks. I keep seeing people refer to prioritization methods, roadmapping, stakeholder management, etc.
But as a junior PM, who is more responsible for the execution, I rarely get the opportunities to apply these frameworks to make actual judgements/decisions and learn from them in my day to day. I mostly learn by observing my manager/seniors. It feels like something I'm only picking up by accident.
My question for all the senior PMs here - how did you actually manage to bridge this gap early in your career? Did you find relevant communities, side projects, mentors? Or did you just grind through it until someone gave you more responsibility?
To the other early career/aspiring PMs - Are there any practical, experience-sharing groups/communities? Places where people from different product teams and different industries talk about real problem statements they came across, how they weighed different options, and how they actually arrived at a decision? Would love to find something like that to practice/improve my skills without having to just rely on the problems I'm being handed at my job..