You can't grow if you are doing the same thing. You have to step out of your comfort zone, so progressively overloading your muscles and yourself is key to succeeding in the gym and life.

The biggest mistake you can make that will drastically slow your progress is not pushing yourself hard enough. When you start, you won't be used to the weight you are using or the number of reps and sets over time, you will get used to it, and when you do, you need to up the difficulty.

While it is a strategy to maintain your strength and size by doing the same routine as a beginner, growing is far more critical. While you may not be bench pressing 225lbs for a while, you won't get there if you don't gradually build up to it.

Another critical thing to remember is even though you need to push yourself; you still need to have a good form so you don't end up hurting yourself and so that you can see more progress as time passes.

Going up a few pounds is the first way to overload your muscles, but there are also other ways if you struggle, such as lowering the amount of rest time and increasing the number of sets and reps.

With all that said, the key things to remember are that you need to train with intensity and intent to grow but not to the point of hurting yourself and that there are more ways than one to progressively overload so you don't stunt your growth in your fitness journey.