If practitioners and clients doing "inner work" were optimizing for results — entering long-term relationships, durably losing interest in coping behaviors, curing burnout, etc. — what would we expect to see? 

Practitioners:

If practitioners were optimizing for results, I’d expect them to…

— Highlight success stories that emphasize results. Eg, “He was single for years due to anxiety; today, they’re celebrating their one-year anniversary” or “He used to lose 4–5 hours per day to coping behaviors. Then he got bored of them and stopped. It’s been six months since the last session.”

— Follow up. Coaches and retreats would check in months and years later to see whether clients’ lives improved. Did clients get into happy relationships? Lose interest in coping behaviors? Recover from burnout? Or did they experience temporary breakthroughs that faded in weeks? Practitioners would track outcomes to improve outcomes.

— Attempt to align their financial incentives with results. For example, they might experiment with bounties, equity, or performance bonuses on top of regular rates.

What the practitioners I know actually do:

— Highlight testimonials that emphasize experiences. About 2 of over 200 testimonials from three of the most well-known inner work practitioners in my network described observable life changes. 15 similar practitioners’ testimonials showed the same. See: Most "inner work" looks like entertainment for analysis. 

— Never follow up. A retreat that called itself ‘life-changing’ and ‘data-driven’ doesn’t track data on how alums’ lives changed. When an alum offered to do the follow-ups for them, they declined. Similarly, dozens of coaches had never considered following up before I asked them. 

— Charge for experiences — sessions and retreats — not lasting life improvement. The times I’ve discussed my experiments with bounties with traditional inner work practitioners, they’ve either reacted with surprise — they’d never considered aligning incentives with results — or anger — they feel taking responsibility for results is morally perverse. A few have since experimented with pay-for-results structures themselves, but none had before.

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Clients:

If clients were optimizing for results, I’d expect them to…

— Research who has gotten the results they want, then copy the plan. They’d wonder, “Who like me has completely resolved a problem like mine? What did they do?” Then they’d copy the plan. They’d try to work with practitioners who've gotten the results they want for people like them, then do all of the assignments.

— Prefer to pay for results rather than experiences. A client who was optimizing for results would voluntarily pay performance bonuses.

— Avoid practitioners and approaches that are disconnected from lasting results. They’d stay away from practitioners with feedback loops that optimize for temporary breakthroughs and spiritual bypassing. They’d notice when an approach hasn’t helped their friends and update accordingly. 

What most clients actually do:

— Choose practitioners and approaches without checking results. Do you know what lasting results your practitioners have gotten? Some clients even prefer to work exclusively with a practitioner who has a negative track record — themselves.

— Pay for experiences rather than results. I’ve watched decamillionaire friends choose cheaper practitioners without wondering “What results can I expect?”, “How fast?”, or “Wait, why are they cheaper?”

— Engage with practitioners and content that are disconnected from lasting results. They choose retreats, workshops, self-help books, and substacks by what seems fun, what fits their personal aesthetics, and what their friends find entertaining — not by what is connected to lasting life changes. 

— Take advice from people who haven’t gotten results themselves. Some take relationship advice from people who do not have happy relationships. Some talk more about “breakthroughs”, Terminology With Capital Letters, and jhanas than Results. 

For people like this, getting better in two months versus ten years isn’t the point, it’s the friends they make along the way.

If you were optimizing for results, how would your behavior look different?

—@chrislakin | Writing | Now

Thanks to Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson for discussion.

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