There is something particularly terrifying about looking at the career you’ve spent decades building and suddenly thinking: I REALLY don’t want to do this anymore.

But, that’s pretty much where I am. I’ve worked in property management for almost twenty years…that’s 2-0 years!

I’ve managed properties, residents, employees, vendors, budgets, emergencies, angry people, happy people, people who definitely did the thing they’re insisting they didn’t do, and more situations that begin with “You are NOT going to believe this…” than I can count.

But somewhere along the way, property management got to me.

I’m tired… not I need a long weekend tired. I’m I think it’s time to do something else with my life tired

Which is how, at fourty-six years old, I findmyself starting school to earn my BS in Business Administration with a consentration in Healthcare Management.

When Experience Starts Feeling Like A Trap

The weird think is, I’m good at what I do. That’s part of what makes changing careers so complicated.

After almost twenty years, I know property management. I’ve built a career in it. I’ve learned how to handle difficult situations, solve problems, juggle priorities, mangage budgets and vendors and keep things moving when everything seems to be falling apart at the same time.

But there is another side of property management that has worn me down over the years… and I’m pretty sure has caused a little bit of employment PTSD: it’s incredibly unpredictable.

You can be absolutely great at your job. Your residents love you. Your property can be at peak performance. You can have given everything to your community, including overtime, and spend years building relationships with the people who live and work there… and then the portfolio changes hands.

A new regional or portfolio manager comes in, decides they want their own people in place, and suddenly off of the work you’ve done doesn’t matter.

You can be replaced. Just. Like. That!

I have reached a point in my life where that kind of uncertainty is utterly exhausting.

I don’t expect any career to come with a lifetime guarantee. Companies change. People get laid off. Businesses close… that’s just reality.

But there is something uniquely frustrating about working in an industry where you can do everything right and still find yourself starting over because someone, usually several levels above you, decides to rearrange the chessboard.

Well, after almost twenty years, I’m tire of being one of thoses pieces. At the same time, all that experience that is supposed to make me feel secure, feels like a trap. Because when you have spent so many years doing something and gaining skills in that area, the easiest next job is… the exact same job somewhere else.

You might have a different title, better pay, maybe even a nicer office, but in the end… same circus, different leasing office.

I don’t want to spend the next twenty years of my life hopping from one property management company to another just because what is where my experience is.

I want to be able to take everything I have learned over the last twenty years and use it to build something different. Better. More stable.

What Else Am I Qualified to Do?

This is the question I have been asking myself for months now.

Because after so long in one industry, it’s very easy to look at your resume and think: “Well crap, looks like I’m stuck here.”

Except I’m not.

Property management might be the industry I’ve been workign in, but it isn’t the sum total of everything I know how to do.

I know how to:
Manage People
Solve Problems
Handle Budgets
Organize Chaos
Easily communicate with people who are upset, frustrated, confused, scared, or convinced that typing an email in ALL CAPS will some how change the answer they have been given three times already.
I can learn new systems, manage competing priorities, make decisions, write, plan, organize, train, negotiate… and most importantly, adapt.

Those aren’t property managemnt skills. They are MY skills!

Starting Over Isn’t Acutally Starting Over

Going back to school in my forties feels really strange. I’m excited, but also terrified, and honestly, just a little bit old.

I’m going to be sitting in classes with people who may, or may not yet have been born right around the time I started working.

But that’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Right?

I have decided to look at it as, not starting over, but adding something new to everything I’ve already spent decades learning. When I start working toward my bachelor degree, I’m not going to be walking in as some fresh faced, newly minted high school graduate who is still trying to figure out how the world really works.

I’ve been in it. I’ve done everyhthing from working fast food to raising kids.

I’m not starting from zero. I’m starting from experience!

Maybe the Goal Changed

When I was younger, career success seemed pretty straightforward.

Get a job. Work hard. Get promoted. Make more money… etc.

But somewhere after I turned forty, my definition of success changed.

Of course I still want financial security, like a roof, electricity, food. But realized I want other things too.

I want time. I want to travel. I want to write. But most importantly, I want to spend time with those I care about.

I want a career that fits into my life, instead of trying to squeeze my life into whatever space my career leaves me.

The Small Matter of Money

Of course, changing careers in your fourties isn’t quite the same as doing it when you’re twenty-two. There are bills. Responsibilities. Retirement to think about. Health insurance (because your body is falling apart now) and the obscenely high grocery prices.

So walking into work tomorrow, throwing my keys on my desk and announcing that I’m quiting my job to pursue my dreams isn’t not exactly an option at this point. Although I admit to rehearsing several versions of that scene in my head, reality requires a little more planning than that.

So baby steps: I’m starting with school. I’m going to earn that degree I never finished and for the first time in a long time, Instead of asking what the next step is in my property management career, I’m asking a much bigger question: What do I actually want the next twenty years of my working life to look like?

The Advantage of Doing This Now

There is one thing I have now that I definitely didn’t have when I was younger: Perspective.

I’ve lived enough life to know that very few decisions are as permanent as they feel.
I have failed at things.
I have succeeded at things.
I have survived layoffs, terrible jobs, career detours and enough financial stress to give anyone an ulcer.

But I also survived. Something always came through.

That’s a part of getting older that nobody really talks about.

Sure, your body makes noises when you stand up, or sit down… or move, really. But you also become much harder to scare.

You’ve already survived things you though would destroy you, so going back to school at fourty-six? Changing careers after almost twenty years?

Scary? Yes.
Impossible? Not even close.

So, what Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?

I honestly don’t know.

I don’t have some perfectly mapped-out five-year plan with my dream career waiting at the end of it.

But what I do know, is that I’m ready for something different. I’m ready to see where twenty years of experience combined with an education and a willingness to try something new might take me.

So, I’m going back to school. I’m going to get my degree. Then, I’m going to figure out what’s next.

Maybe that’s what a midlife career change really is.

It’s not starting over. It’s not thowing away everything you have built. It’s reaching a point where you know yourself well enough to say: This chapter has tought me a lot. But I’m ready to see what happens in the next one.