You can’t see your own growth day to day, like you can’t see your hair grow. Check old pictures.

Progress happens at a rate too slow to perceive while you are inside it, so the daily experience is of standing still. That is why effort can feel pointless for months and then obvious in hindsight. Your sense of whether you are improving is not really measuring anything, it is reporting on today. Records measure and feelings do not.

Go and find evidence this week instead of asking yourself how it is going. An essay from last year, a video of you playing in September, an old photo, the first page of an old notebook. Keep something you can compare against, because in April you will want it.