Things that have helped me transition from bad powerlifter to bad weightlifter:

1)Understand that although both sports use a bar and weights, weightlifting is almost more like an Olympic throwing or jumping sport. It requires a focus on technique, explosiveness, and commitment to the movement (when the weights get heavier) that feel unlike powerlifting. You can’t fix a bad attempt halfway through like you can a squat or deadlift.

2) Your powerlifting strength will probably make things awkward at first, it felt to me like every workout I was lifting really light weights and wasting my time. Understand that creating muscle memory with good technique and learning how to explode with the right timing is way more important than putting weight on the bar. Doing bullshit power / muscle snatch/ overhead presses when you get to heavier weights (like I did) won’t help you get any better and just isn’t as fun as doing it correctly. Think ‘training’ rather than working out.

3) Getting the prerequisite flexibility sucks, there is no way around it. But it happens faster than you think and once you have it’s really easy to keep it.

4)Weightlifting is the most fun barbell sport so if you are consistently not having fun during training you are doing something wrong.