Difficulty piercing skin with needle

I use the pre-filled syringe and I have a REALLY hard time getting the needle to pierce my skin. I inject into my belly area because my thigh was wayyy too painful (I've heard this is common for women). When I try to insert the needle, it pushes into my skin, creating a dimple of sorts, but then takes what seems like a lot of force to get it to fully pierce into the subcutaneous fat.

I know the auto injector would be easier from this perspective, but even with the syringe, the burning of the medication itself is unbearable unless I go extremely slow, so that's a hard pass for me. and yes, I am leaving it overnight to come up to room temp - that shit just hurts.

Anybody else experience this? Wondering if maybe I need to moisturize my skin, or if these needles are just a bit dull, or maybe there's some technique that I'm missing?