"you may find yourself facing a hard, if meaningful, path" What does "if meaningful" mean in this context?

The full text I'm trying to understand is the following:

If you decide to split your time between two passions—say, music and psychotherapy—you may find yourself facing a hard, if meaningful, path. You will need to be especially disciplined if you want to keep on top of both goals.

What does "if meaningful" mean in this context. Is it the same as "if anything"?

Solution 1:

I think the word choice presented is not clear, but I believe "if meaningful" is intended to acknowledge that the difficulty of the task may be justified because the goal may be meaningful to the subject of the statement. Think "starving artist". Using the word "if", I suppose "even if meaningful" would work. I would choose "even though".

"If you decide to split your time between two passions — say music and psychotherapy — you may find yourself facing a hard, even though meaningful, path.