The result you are proud of should not require pretending the process was effortless.

Good work is often presented as though it appeared easily, partly out of modesty and partly because struggle sounds like weakness. The cost falls on whoever is watching: they compare their own difficult process to your smooth account and conclude they lack something. It also isolates you, since nobody can admire a version of the work you did not actually do. Effort is not an embarrassing detail attached to the result.

When someone praises something you made, say one true thing about what it took. Mention the part you got wrong twice, or the months it sat unfinished.