I practiced my f barre for a few months and it was so difficult that I took a break from guitar for a while. Then I played it on someone else’s guitar and it was easy.

That’s how I learned the action on my guitar was too high. A setup by a luthier fixed that.

You’ll be surprised how little force you’ll be using later on versus what you’re using now. Things will get more and more efficient as your technique improves. But until then, someone else here suggested rolling your barre finger back a bit so you’re fretting the barre more with the side of your finger. That’s good advice as the side of your finger is a bit bonier, and the strings can’t get lost in the creases at your finger joints as easily. Another thing that helps is instead of squeezing so much with your hand, pull back on the neck with your whole arm and use some of those larger muscle groups to apply pressure to the fretboard. Some people use a sort of downward version of that where you use the weight of your arm to add pressure in a down and back direction.

One thing to keep in mind which may help is that you don’t need to hold your barre across all six strings. Your other fingers are covering the A, D, and G strings, so you only need to focus your barre on the E, B, and e strings. And when all else fails you can consult Uncle Ben .

I’m a couple years into my acoustic guitar journey and it’s still very much a stickler for me.

Something that massively helped was a friend mentioning I should make sure my guitar was “set up”. I took it into a guitar shop and asked and it turns out that on brand new guitars there are often some small adjustments to the neck, bridges and frets that can really improve how hard you have to press for the note. Guitars may warp slightly over time as well depending on their storage, climate etc… so sometimes tweaking can be needed later in it’s life. And some people prefer certain tweaks, lower versus higher action. So even if you guitar isn’t new it might still need some tweaking for you.

I’d never heard anyone mention it before my friend did (and not much since) and it made a big difference in my case. I went from slightly dreading my practice sessions to feeling much more enthusiastic. It was just that much easier to play. Might be worth asking about. No idea if it really applies on electric if that’s what you’re playing.

Best of luck, I’ve had a fun ride so far and I hope yours is too!

Gets a little easier, but I still have to concentrate to make it sound clear to this day (20+ years later), but its much easier on the electric than on the classical guitar I learned on.

Everyone feels this way. For me, positioning my thumb and holding the guitar neck closer to 45 degrees made this cord (and almost everything else) much easier. When you are struggling, it can also mean that your hand muscles are getting tired. Take a break and come back to build up strength.