Is All That Travel Really Necessary?

Maybe not, says this work-life specialist

Cali Williams Yost is president of Work+Life Fit, Inc., and author of Work+Life: Finding the Fit That's Right for You. Yost, who hosts a blog at
worklifefit.com, founded Work+Life Fit, a Madison, N.J.-based company dedicated to helping professionals manage the way life fits in their work schedule. She is a recent recipient of the Work-Life Rising Star Award from the Alliance for Work-Life Progress. Yost spoke with Consulting about what, if anything, can be done about the profession's rigorous travel schedule and its impact on consultants.

Why work/life "fit" instead of "balance"?
It's not about balance. We need to get rid of that word. It causes way more problems than it solves. There are many transitions in life—getting married, parenthood, elder care, retirement—and people need to adjust their work-life fit in response to that. For many people, balance represents this magical 50/50 split between work and their personal lives. Balance becomes the deficit module; it's always the thing you don't have. Work-life fit, on the other hand, is about your realities at a particular time in your work and personal life and creating that fit.

With the amount of travel in this industry, could consultants really find a good fit?
It's even more critical for somebody in a field like consulting to approach it as work-life fit rather than balance. Consultants will never achieve a traditional balance. If you look at it as work-life fit, that allows you to look at your circumstances as they are today personally and professionally. Then, figure out how you can make that fit work for you. I have known a number of people in this field who are fine on the road for a part of their career. If you're just out of business school, you're young and not married, and you're interested in making a lot of money, a consultant's travel schedule can work for you.