The person who celebrates small progress has more reasons to keep paying attention.

Attention follows reward, and if the only reward you allow yourself is the finish, then the whole middle of anything becomes a stretch of nothing. Noticing a small gain is not self-congratulation; it is how you keep looking closely enough to see what is working.

At the end of this week, write down one thing that is measurably better than it was on Monday, however minor. A page written, a plant that took, a conversation that went better than the last one. Do it again next week. The habit costs two minutes and it changes what you notice.