Hype from strangers is nice. Belief from yourself is what pays the bills.

Encouragement from outside feels good and arrives on somebody else’s schedule, usually when things are already going well. It disappears in the slow stretch, which is precisely when it would be useful. What is available every day is your own read on whether the work is worth continuing, and that has to be built rather than received.

Write your own assessment of what you are working on: what is genuinely good in it, what is not there yet, whether it is worth another month. Be accurate rather than kind. Reread it on a day when nobody says anything nice, which is most days.