Grow until the problem needs a new strategy.

A problem is only fixed in size relative to you. The obstacle that dominated your year at one level of skill becomes a routine item at another, without the obstacle itself changing at all. Much of the energy spent looking for cleverer ways around difficulty would be better spent becoming someone for whom that difficulty is ordinary. Growth changes the shape of the whole landscape rather than one feature of it.

Think about the problem that keeps returning in different disguises. Ask which capability would make it small. Spend the next stretch developing that instead of engineering another workaround.