You can’t see your brain growing the way you see a haircut grow out. Trust that it’s happening anyway.

Progress in your head has no visible edge to measure against. Hair, height, a scar healing, all of it gives you something to compare week to week, while understanding accumulates invisibly and then shows up all at once as ease. Because there is no daily proof, effort can feel wasted right up until the moment it obviously was not.

Keep something that records the work instead of the result. A dated page of problems you attempted, or notes you wrote badly and later rewrote, will do. On the days it feels like nothing is changing, that page is better evidence than your mood.