There is no shortcut to big goals.

There is an odd relief in the absence of shortcuts. If none exists, there is nothing you are failing to find, no clever route the competent people took while you did it the long way round.

Runners understand this best. The slow miles cannot be skipped or substituted, and nobody has ever turned up at a marathon having located a workaround. What that removes is the suspicion that you are doing it wrong. You are doing it at the only speed it has ever been done at.