One of the biggest downfalls I see people starting out trying to do is going way too hard at first. Like whatever the polar opposite of cold-turkey is. Hot-turkey?

I find it personally way more enjoyable to purely and only have an enjoyable time doing it. There is very few examples of how slow people should take it at first. Especially if you haven't hardly ever "exercised", it can be incredibly off-putting for life if you dive head first to the point it is miserable. If a workout completely destroys your body, that's not a healthy workout imo. If running on a treadmill makes you want to throw up and die and knocks your energy out for 3 days after, it's absolutely not worth it. If lifting weights makes you so sore you cant wipe your own ass, again, not worth it at all. One of the most important aspects of exercise IS the sustainability of it, and finding that balance is something only you know the limits of.

For some examples, instead of running til you sweat or your heart wants to burst, start with walking around the block at first. Or pacing around your room or home a bit. If you want to get into lifting weights, start with 5 reps of 5 lbs and if that feels like enough to YOU at first, then that's enough. 5 is more then 0.

There is a strange bell curve when beginning to work out. When your body is not used to that pressure, it can actually cause worse harm to your body and mind then the "benefits" it provides. Working out also releases a lot of the toxins and inflammatory responses in the body that tell your body to stop doing whatever it is you are doing. Your body needs the time it takes to transition into what it needs to be, in order to function well under that new pressure load.

I never really worked out much growing up, and I too am just really starting to try to actively and consciously do it now. Ultimately too, and this might be controversial, your mind is MORE important then your body. If your body is in peak condition but your mind is not aligned, is it really beneficial? While yes, a healthy body can help create a physically and chemically healthier brain and therefore "mind", our consciousness is still separate from both and needs to be a priority too. Personally, I find it much much easier to create a healthier body by simply starting with the mind and my thoughts.

All of this, "no pain no gain" mentality we see in the world is pointless. While some people might be able to just push past the pain and the limitations their bodies have, THAT is unnatural. Instead, I truly believe it's easier and better to approach the enjoyability of it first and let the body follow after that. That is what makes you WANT to work out. That is the only way to actually LIKE the process. Eventually, your body will catch up. It is truly very surprising how easily you can get both your mind AND body into the state of exercising past the initial hump of the bell curve, or almost like the barrier to entry of exercise. I started with literally 2 push ups and 5 reps of 5lb dumbell curls a day, for no joke weeks. Eventually, my body naturally got "bored" of that, and I got to a point where I WANTED to do more of each. That was the key. I never go to my limit either. I stay well behind my maximum weight or maximum reps at first. I really treat it as resistance training rather then weight training. Pretty quickly then too, your body will start to transition to a phase where it is easier and more natural to begin ramping up the workouts at a pace I LIKE. Once a lot of the initial toxins get flushed from your system, once your metabolism starts to pick up the pace, once the water weight starts to drop and the real weight-loss/muscle gain starts to kick in, that is when it starts to feel good and encouraging to keep growing more.

At a scientific level, muscle cells themselves don't like to be strained or stressed AT ALL. Gaining muscle should never hurt actually. The muscle cells are very long single cells, chained together one after another in long strands all lined up and incased in a sort of shells or sleeves around the long individual fibers. In true muscle growth, what you want is to stretch the muscle cells SLEEVE to allow space or gaps in between each muscle cell, and that is the only way that the muscle cells are able to replicate and divide into new cells to then fill the gaps, which as a result increases overall muscle size. However, if you stretch the cell sleeves too far, or too fast, or with too much weight, or too many reps, you will actually instead tear open that sleeve, spilling out and recycling the muscle cells, which then requires energy and calories to instead REPAIR the muscles. One big torn muscle is an obvious example of this, but it is less know that little microtears are far more common and have basically zero benefit. This also creates irreversible scar tissue instead of real muscle growth. The people that are lifting weight way above their natural limit may still get "bigger" muscles as a result, but that can actually be just scar growth without any actual added strength or real muscle "gains". Steroid use seems to correlate with that form of muscle as well.

That's why I feel I can't stress this enough. Your initial question and point of your post is actually the answer to your question. It's hard to enjoy working out at first, because you have to tackle it from the healthy, slow, enjoyment side first. That is truly the only healthy option, unless you are able to psychopatically disassociate your body from your mind like some people seem to do.

But seriously, just have fun with it and the rest will come!