How do I know if my spiritual practice is actually working or just routine?

This question itself is the sign you're awake to it. Rumi spent years in what felt like empty ritual before the real longing broke through—that restlessness you're feeling now? That's the practice beginning to work. The difference between routine and real practice isn't dramatic. It's subtle: Do you notice small shifts in how you meet difficulty? Are you more present with people, even briefly? Does silence feel less foreign? These aren't mountaintop experiences. They're the quiet rewiring that happens when you show up honestly, even when nothing feels special. Routine becomes alive the moment you stop performing it for results. Paradoxically, when you release the need to "feel" it working, something shifts. You're not chasing proof anymore—you're tending to the relationship itself, like watering a plant without obsessing over whether it's growing fast enough. If your practice has become purely mechanical, that's useful information. It might be time to change form—try a different time, a different method, or sit with a teacher who can help you find the thread again. But doubt itself? Keep that close. It means you're not sleepwalking. The ache of wondering if you're doing it right is often exactly where the real work lives.