The applause comes after the song, not during the practice that made it. Plan to go a long time without clapping.

Encouragement arrives at the end, and the end is far away, so you cannot run the middle on it. Nobody will congratulate you for the Tuesday you spent on one bar for forty minutes. If applause is your fuel you will stall in month two, which is why people who last build something else to run on.

Decide now what will keep you going when nothing is being said about it. A log of sessions, a weekly recording, one friend who asks how it is going. Set it up this week, before the quiet part. Then treat any applause that arrives as a bonus rather than as payment.