I find with string gauge, too thin is also a problem on acoustic.
10s feel like little razors cutting in to my little finger on cords in spite of well developed calluses and they also don’t feel good to finger pick either.
I actually like 12s the best, but have had to slowly work my way up to them. Still leaning towards low tension 12s.
Currently I have 11s (Martin Monel retro) and wish they were thicker, but the tension is better.
I am playing more nylon and am a bit worried I will lose some tolerance of steel pain.
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I have now realised that finger pressure is very important and I was basically applying to much pressure as I was concentrating on finger placement. Im now trying to be a lot lighter in my playing. An electric guitar will be next on my list. 
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Hello.
Im now trying to be as light as possible with shorter practice sessions, while changing up the practice session. It seems to be helping.
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It’s really easy to get a habit of applying a ‘death-grip’ with your fretting hand, and once you’ve worked through the first month or few of working out when and where to move your fingers, it’s surprising just how lightly you can press the strings, provided that you are fretting correctly [1].
It’s worth knowing that if you have a muscle tensed, then to relax it (e.g. to use the opposing muscle), takes a finite amount of time (your muscles don’t switch-off instantly), and the harder you are tensing the muscle, the longer it takes to relax it.
This is really obvious if you watch a martial arts class where someone relatively new is practising with someone with a lot of experience; the more experienced person will use no more effort than needed and their movements will make their body appear to ‘flow’ from one position to another, while the less experienced person will have very obvious transition stages as they try to undo one position and then apply another one with their body (part of this is due to internalisation of technique as skill too).
That’s a long way of saying that in guitar playing, avoiding the death-grip is one part of (eventually) having your fingers flow across the strings (I’m still working hard on that myself).
[1] Pressing a string to touch a fret at the fret always takes way less effort than trying to fret halfway between two frets.
HI Gary and welcome and thanks for the intro. Some good advice given so far so nothing add from me at this stage, as it would be repeating what’s been said. However, you may consider creating your own Learning Log here
https://community.justinguitar.com/c/community-hub/learning-logs/231
Its a section where folks chart and record their progress once they have said Hi here and will give you the opportunity to review how you are getting. Its often so easy to get caught in the now and forget where you actually started from.
Look forward to hearing more.
Hello.
I have been practicing quite a bit lately and I’m happy to report a huge improvement. I was definitely to preoccupied with chord shape and not realising how hard I was applying my fingers. A big improvement this week.
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