Rehab exercises look easy from across the room. Try lifting a leg you haven’t trusted in six weeks.

Effort is invisible from a distance. A small, slow movement can be the hardest thing somebody does all day, and watching it tells you nothing about the cost, especially when the hard part is trusting a leg or a hand that recently failed. That gap between how a thing looks and what it takes applies to most people you watch.

Hold off on ranking how hard anyone else’s work is, particularly the parts that look simple. If you are the one doing the small movements, stop apologising for their size. Ask whoever is helping you what good progress looks like, so your measure matches theirs.