Nobody sees your two years of braces in the wedding photos. Patience that worked tends to be invisible.

Successful patience erases its own evidence. Once the teeth are straight there is nothing left to show the two years, and the same goes for the savings that prevented a crisis or the practice that made something look easy. People credit luck or talent because the effort is not available to look at.

Build a record for yourself, since nobody else will have one. A photo from the start, a note about what month eight was like, the old recording. Not to show anyone, just so you can recognise what you did. The next long thing is easier to start when you have proof that the last one worked.