I go to the gym to experience regular doses of misery...and that's OK

I'm not sure "misery" is even the right word, but there's no doubt my most productive gym workouts involve bursts of discomfort.

Like, for example, leg days often include walking lunges. I carry a dumbbell in each hand and take elongated steps from one end of the gym to the other, then I turn around and lunge my way back to where I started.

If done correctly, this exercise makes my hamstrings, quadriceps and calves burn. And my legs invariably feel like jelly for some time after I finish.

But then I do another set. And another. And usually another.

The same holds true for any exercise. When it comes to strength training, if you can comfortably perform a particular movement, you either need to add more resistance or more repetitions to make it more challenging.

Or both.

While I am in no way a workout veteran (I'm still adapting from being a runner/walker to being primarily a lifter), I have learned to "embrace the suck," as someone put it.

In other words, there not only have to be times when you say to yourself, "Man, this is no fun at all," you also have to figure out how to enjoy that feeling.

I'm getting better and better at it.

I go to the gym five times a week. Two of those sessions are done under the supervision of my trainer Kirk, while the other three are entirely on my own.

It never fully escapes my notice during those solo sessions that, should I choose to put down the weights and walk out of the gym at any point mid-workout, no one would stop me. Nor would/should anyone even notice or care.

I am 100% responsible for my own motivation and for pushing myself to muscle failure, which is the point where you really benefit physically from weightlifting.

While I've never actually quit in the middle of a workout, early on I found myself backing off effort-wise when things got tough. I might do fewer repetitions than prescribed, or I might ignore proper form in favor of just getting the weight into the air.

But as I've built physical strength these past 5+ months, I've also built mental strength. I continue to need Kirk to set my workouts and ensure I'm performing exercises correctly, but I don't need him there in person for my one-man workouts to be beneficial.

I am slowly learning to embrace the suck, a point I never thought I would reach.

The application to life outside of the gym is readily apparent. Whatever you do, the only way to get better is to apply yourself in a way that's not always going to be enjoyable. "No pain, no gain" has some truth to it, though it doesn't necessarily have to hurt.

It just needs to be uncomfortable for you. Sometimes very uncomfortable.

I find myself these days with more muscle on my frame than I ever had (or thought I had) when I played football as a high schooler, but the real benefit for me to this point has been mental.

I just wish it hadn't taken me more than a half-century to learn.