No path of flowers leads to glory.

Anything worth reaching is reached through a stretch that is not enjoyable. The pleasant route exists, and it goes somewhere pleasant and small; it does not go where you said you wanted to go. Worth knowing early, because a lot of people abandon good work at exactly the point where it stops being fun, mistaking difficulty for a sign they chose wrong.

When the current effort turns tedious, treat that as the expected part of the road rather than as information about your fit. Set a fixed period to keep going before you reconsider, and judge at the end of it.