Work starts changing you before results start changing your circumstances.

Long before a project produces external results, it produces changes in you, in skill, in tolerance, in what you can see. Those arrive early and go unnoticed because they are not measurable. People quit during this phase believing nothing is happening, when the first return is already being paid.

Track what you can now do that you could not three months ago. That record is what keeps you working through the stretch where circumstances have not yet responded.