How do you know that something you are working on is bearing fruits when you can’t see those fruits immediately?

Say you are working hard to lose weight, and after 5 days of gym, the scale keeps throwing out the same number.

Often people give up when what they work on very hard, does not churn out instant results.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear says the following about habits:

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Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.

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Keep putting in the hours, working hard, in the short-term, the results may not be visible, but over time, they will start to show.

Just be patient, the results are there, just not visible.

This reminds me of the Chinese story of the Bamboo tree.

The first four years of planting the Bamboo tree, nothing happens, nothing comes out of the ground for four years.

Only on the fifth year, the bamboo tree seed finally sprouts and the tree grows up to eighty feet in just one growing season! or so it seems.

The tree has actually been growing for five years, four years underground, not seen by anyone, even the planter, and the fifth year, boom it grows outwardly.

Keep on putting in the hours, you are growing internally, it is a matter of time, your growth will show externally.