Sourdough starter takes a week of feeding before it’s ready to do anything. Then it outlives the person who started it.

Some things demand real investment before they give you anything back, and there is no way to sample the payoff first. A week of feeding something that does nothing feels ridiculous while you are doing it. Then it turns, and it keeps producing for years, long past the point where the original effort looks proportional.

Identify one thing you keep abandoning during the boring stretch at the beginning: a habit, an instrument, a language, a friendship. Commit to a fixed window, say three weeks, where you do not evaluate it at all. Judge it after, not during.