Upon seeing his student Epigenes neglect his health, Socrates is said to have remarked: “It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” Of course, the Ancient Greeks placed considerable value on physical fitness, but perhaps Socrates was talking about something more than physical strength.

Over time, I’ve noticed that the gym offers plenty of behavioural insights that apply well beyond exercise. So, without further ado, here are eight life lessons from the gym.

Lesson 1: No pain, no gain

Yes, yes. This is a cliché, but it is also remarkably versatile. When someone lifts weights, mechanical tension in the muscles stimulates adaptation and growth. In much the same way, most forms of growth require some degree of difficulty.

Babies learn to walk by resisting gravity, one step at a time. Vaccines train our immune systems to respond more effectively to pathogens. Heartbreak and rejection can turn naïveté into something closer to calculated optimism. Learning new subjects promotes synaptogenesis, the demanding process through which the brain forms new connections.

This foundational lesson underpins everything that follows.

Lesson 2: Don’t neglect the upkeep

January gym joiners are recognisable not because of their ego lifting, their lost expressions, or even their questionable gym etiquette. Their form gives them away.

You’ll see them struggling to slllloooowwwlly lift a weight, perhaps during a biceps curl, only to drop it and let gravity take over. The same thing happens with leg presses, hamstring curls and even push ups. There is deliberate strain during the effort phase, followed by a hurried return to the starting position.

But no pain, no gain. More importantly, and perhaps less intuitively, this approach means they are often not even doing half the work. The return phase can create considerable strain of its own and contribute substantially to muscle growth.

There is a broader lesson here. The way we perform a task matters, but so does what happens after its apparent climactic moment. We cannot simply concentrate on the part that feels important and neglect everything that comes afterwards.

Lesson 3: Skill is not a quality; it is evidence of a habit

When researchers examined Einstein’s brain, they found an anomaly and wondered whether they had discovered the physical “mark” of genius. What they actually found was an enlargement in the motor cortex, which was likely related to his decades of violin playing.

Our brains change in response to what we repeatedly do. This is one aspect of neuroplasticity. Just as our faces develop lines from the expressions we make most often, our brains adapt to the activities we practise repeatedly.

Skill is therefore revealed not by an isolated attempt but through repetition. Anyone can begin a task. What separates ability from genuine skill is the long term commitment to the process and the consistency with which it is maintained.

Lesson 4: Strength has many faces

Just as Howard Gardner popularised his multiple intelligences theory, which proposes that intelligence takes many forms, strength can take many forms too.

Sprinters often lack the endurance of marathon runners, while marathon runners generally lack the explosive power that sprinters possess. Gymnasts can contort themselves and hold their bodies up using muscles in ways that seem almost impossible, while powerlifters can move loads approaching the weight of a vehicle.

The same principle applies outside the gym. Strength might mean juggling ten tasks at once, or it might mean ignoring nine distractions so you can concentrate on one. Strength is not a skill in itself. It is a way of describing the skills we have developed.

Lesson 5: What you avoid is often the way forward

There are exercises that terrify even the most seasoned gym goers. Bulgarian split squats, Ukrainian deadlifts and Russian twists come to mind. Armenian hammer curls would also make the list, although I made that one up.

I’ve never felt more engagement in my legs than after my first Bulgarian split squats. I’ve also never felt wobblier. My timbers were shivering specifically because I rarely trained single leg balance.

The same thing happens in life. It might be the conversation you keep avoiding, the decision you continue to procrastinate over, or the task you repeatedly find an excuse not to tackle. Sometimes the best way forward is straight through whatever is holding you back.

We are defined not only by what we do, but also by what we choose not to do.

Lesson 6: Failure is also good

As a high school and college educator, I’m constantly surrounded by students who fear few words more than FAILURE. Sometimes those words are enough to reduce a boisterous classroom to silence.

Exercise offers a rather different perspective. Failure is often the goal. We lift until failure, plank until we collapse and run until our legs give out. In this context, failure means reaching your current limit. That can be an important step towards pushing that limit further.

Failures are often milestones on the way to accomplishment.

Success is wonderful, but it is also an ending. Once you succeed, you have to find the next challenge. Worse still, if you become too accustomed to success, you can rob yourself of the pleasure of pursuing something that has not yet been achieved.

For some people, success may be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Lesson 7: Everything is better with a partner

One word I’d like to use more frequently is accountabilibuddy, meaning a friend who keeps you on track with your goals. Whenever I schedule a workout with a friend, which is a weekly occurrence, I’m more excited to exercise and the entire workout seems to flow more smoothly.

There is good reason for this. Competition can make cyclists race faster, as demonstrated by one of the early experiments in social psychology. An AA sponsor can help someone maintain sobriety. Even the simple experience of working alongside another person can make difficult tasks feel more manageable.

Whatever the mechanism, difficulties often become easier when somebody else is there with you.

Lesson 8: Beware the plateau

Circling back to Lesson 1, when effort diminishes, so do our rewards.

In the gym, the plateau effect occurs when progress begins to slow. You are using the same weight, completing the same number of repetitions and seeing little change.

The solution is simple. Change something.

Lower the weight and increase the repetitions. Increase the weight and lower the repetitions. Change the exercise for that muscle group, perhaps switching from standard biceps curls to Bayesian curls.

The same principle applies outside the gym. When work becomes too unvarying, classes become too simple, or relationships become too predictable, it may be time to introduce some variation.

That does not mean quitting your job, dropping out of school or leaving your partner. It means finding ways to introduce change, because new challenges nourish us.

For work, explore alternative solutions to old problems or consider learning something just outside your usual responsibilities.

For class, see whether you can explain the lesson at different levels. Try explaining it to a five year old, then try explaining it to a philosophy professor.

For relationships, I’ll leave that to you.

Once resistance stops resisting you, it’s time to find new resistance.

US educator Samuel Armen was named “Most Influential Teacher” at Brooklyn Tech. He also teaches psychology at Hunter College, has conducted clinical research on former orphans, and runs a psychology platform reaching 25,000 people.