Your fingertips have to toughen up before the guitar sounds good. The sore weeks are the tuition.

Some costs get paid up front, in discomfort, before there is anything to show. Sore fingers are not a sign you are doing it wrong. They are the price of a physical change that has to happen before the sound arrives, and knowing that is what carries people through the stretch where it hurts and still sounds bad.

If you are in the paying-up-front part of something, name it as that this week. Keep the sessions short and frequent rather than long and heroic. Mark the date you started, so in a month you can see what the sore weeks bought.