The phrase "a difficult way to" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing a method or approach that is challenging or complicated.
Example: "Finding a solution to this problem is a difficult way to achieve our goals."
Alternatives: "a challenging method to" or "a tough approach to".
"It is a difficult way to learn the business".
Running a pub in this environment is a difficult way to make a living but I believe it is important".
"When it's good it's very good, but it's a difficult way to make a living," he said.
It is a difficult way to tell a story and, at first, it is as annoying as it is impressive.
"It just seems to me such a difficult way to live your life to always be photographed and be hounded and asked questions constantly.
"I know it seems like a difficult way to make a living, but I love this," Ms. Lynch said, gulping down her lunch in the Polytech cafeteria.
"He said, 'Painting is a damn fine hobby, but a damn difficult way to make a living,' " said Mr. Wiggins, who took the advice and pursued a career in the Foreign Service.
"Coal miners remember coal mining as a great economic blessing, but it's hard to think of a more difficult way to make a living," said Jennifer Haigh, a novelist whose fictional town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, was the setting for a novel and a just-released collection of short stories called "News From Heaven".
"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content," Chase Carey, News Corp's deputy chairman told a conference in the US in September.
If you were just to build another IDE, that's gonna be a really difficult way to build a business.
But despite football being a notoriously difficult way to get a return on your investment, there are plenty who think these sorts of deals - and Qatar's winning 2022 World Cup bid - make sense, even if there is no tangible financial gain.
