Showing up every day doesn’t look scary. After a year, it’s terrifying.

One day of effort is unimpressive by design, which is exactly why it is possible to do. Nothing about a single session feels significant, and that is the reason it survives the days when you are tired or bored. The result only becomes visible once a great many unimpressive days are stacked behind it.

Pick something small enough that you could do it on a bad day and set it going. Resist the urge to make it bigger in the first week, because that is what usually ends it. Count weeks rather than days, and let the size of it surprise you later.