Nature does not confuse stillness with inactivity.

The seed under the frost, the bear in winter, the field that looks dead in January: enormous activity is happening in every one of them, invisibly. Nature has no concept of a fallow period as wasted time, because that is where the next growth is being prepared.

When you are in a phase with nothing to show, consider that the work may be happening below the surface. That is not a license to drift forever, only a reason to stop punishing yourself during the parts of a process that do not produce visible output.