Difference between Challenging and Difficult

CHALLENGING vs DIFFICULT: ADJECTIVE

Not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
Requiring much effort and trouble
Requiring considerable effort or skill; not easy to do or accomplish.
Not easy to comprehend, solve, or explain.
Not easy to please, satisfy, or manage.
Not easy to persuade or convince; stubborn.
Hard to control
Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome; eg. said of a person, a horse, etc.
Hard, not easy, requiring much effort
Hard to manage or to please; not easily wrought upon; austere; stubborn.
Hard to do or to make; beset with difficulty; attended with labor, trouble, or pains; not easy; arduous.
Not easy to endure; full of hardship or trouble; trying.

To make difficult; impede.
To perplex; embarrass.
Not easy; requiring or dependent on effort; hard; troublesome; arduous.
Hard to do, perform, or overcome; attended with labor, pains, or opposition; laborious: as, a difficult undertaking.
Hard to please or satisfy; not compliant; unaccommodating; rigid; austere: as, a person of difficult temper.
Hard to persuade or induce; stubborn in yielding; obstinate as to opinion: as, he was difficult to convince.
Hard to understand or solve; perplexing; puzzling: as, a difficult passage in an author; a difficult question or problem.
Synonyms Difficult, Hard, Arduous (see arduous), laborious, toilsome; obscure, knotty.
Not easy

Problematic, Perilous, Arduous, Stressful, Rewarding, Tricky, Daunting, Tough, Thought provoking, Provocative, Stimulating, Intriguing, Ambitious, Hard, Difficult

Thorny, Trying, Unenviable, Delicate, Awkward, Rocky, Rough, Troublesome, Problematical, Arduous, Hard, Problematic, Challenging, Tough, Tricky

Problematic, Perilous, Arduous, Stressful, Rewarding, Tricky, Daunting, Tough, Thought provoking, Provocative, Stimulating, Intriguing, Ambitious, Hard, Difficult

Thorny, Trying, Unenviable, Delicate, Awkward, Rocky, Rough, Troublesome, Problematical, Arduous, Hard, Problematic, Challenging, Tough, Tricky

Cases need to be interesting, educational, and challenging.
Undertaking a project can be challenging and exciting.
Pancreatic cancer treatment: Why is it so challenging?
Decisions around capital expenditures can often be challenging.
The diagnosis of this condition is often challenging.
SAFETY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGSLEC challenging learning environments.
Most challenging part of being a woman electrician.
Management of pregnancy with uterine prolapse is challenging.
Planning weddings on a budget can be challenging.
There would be extraordinary litigation, massive litigation challenging our system, challenging each payment.

It certainly can make for a difficult marriage.
Find it difficult to get around your bathroom?
Metaphors are more difficult to teach than similes.
Times have been so difficult in recent months.
The use of cryptography is complex and difficult.
Slow and difficult process to retrieve boarding pass.
Calamity player, pure summoner would be insanely difficult.
You are saying it is more difficult, music is more difficult?
Some dailies are more difficult than others, a lot more difficult.
Advancing racial equity is already difficult, but then you add the scope and it becomes more difficult.