Abstract encouragement rarely sustains hope for long, but a small, visible win, a task actually completed, a measurable step forward, tends to do considerably more, since it offers concrete evidence rather than mere reassurance that progress toward a larger goal is genuinely possible after all. The habit is simple to describe but, like most habits, considerably harder to maintain for long.
Deliberately structuring a large goal into smaller milestones, each one clearly achievable and clearly visible once reached, gives hope regular opportunities to be reinforced by real evidence rather than needing to survive purely on faith across a long stretch with no confirmation along the way.
This is part of why so many support programs, whether for recovery, for a difficult project, or for a community campaign, deliberately build in visible early wins, not because they are the most important part of the goal, but because they keep hope fed with real evidence while the larger goal remains some distance away.