that's cool and all but in the span of like 5 years i've basically completely turned my life around and the absolute worst it ever felt was some DOMS when i wasn't used to the exercise..
...

Yeah no this complete and utter nonsense, you can and should improve yourself without suffering, if you make yourself suffer you're probably doing it wrong.
Your body can experience pain for a reason, pain means you're causing damage and damage is bad. And if you constantly associate beneficial things with pain then you're literally conditioning yourself to dislike it, that's just operant conditioning which is one of the most basic behavioral things in general.

Pain isn't virtous; What's virtous is to be introspective, identify and acknowledge your flaws, then deal with them the best you can, seek help if you can't handle it on your own. That is how you improve yourself reliably and sustainably, without ending up bitter or literally physically broken because you took exercise too far.

You're the sculptor, but you're not marble; You're clay: and clay needs a delicate touch to sculpt, lest you squeeze too hard and ruin it.