I think this is the case for just about every serious athlete. Pain sucks for a few hours, but the mental is tough.
One thing I like to do is to separate myself from my body. I am me. My soul, my mind, my essence, whatever you want to say. My body? This is my ride. Busting up my body is like taking my bike into the shop. Rode it hard, had a great time, now time to fix her up a bit. I know this thing is getting totaled in the end, but I’m getting my moneys worth out of it until then.
A BAD habit of mine is to treat recovery like a competition. There’s no trophy for who got back to a 225 deadlift the fastest, no one gives a damn if your the best at your PT exercises. Recovery is recovery, competition is competition, treat em like that.
@T3hPwnisher made an entire log documenting his recovery from a gnarly ACL tear. Lots of gold in there, I think you’d get something out of it, even if just mindset stuff.