#47 The One Thing Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals --- Part 2 of Virtue Series

We explore sloth as more than laziness and show how diligence restores purpose, peace, and spiritual clarity. Practical tools, honest language, and simple habits help you move even when you don’t feel like it.

• defining sloth as resistance to rightful effort
• distinguishing rest from avoidance
• faces of sloth: laziness, negligence, apathy, effeminacy, acedia
• why lukewarm faith harms discernment and desire
• costs of sloth: regret, lost confidence, stalled growth
• diligence as steady stewardship, not striving
• perseverance, dedication, fortitude, resilience, toughness
• routines, accountability, prayer, and remembering your why
• one small step to rebuild momentum

If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon Kcoaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Recap

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Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy and I'm a certified life and mindset coach and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hello. Today is part two of our virtue series. Last week we talked about pride and humility. Today we're going to be moving into sloth and diligence. Sloth, what a word, huh? I don't know about you, but as someone growing up, I don't think I ever really knew what a sloth was. I don't know that I really I mean heard the word. Now I'm talking about the animal, of course, right? And what comes to mind for me is immediately said the sloth from Ice Age. And maybe you are familiar with that as well. My kids love to well, we love to do this with all sorts of movies, to be honest with you. We kind of mimic movies or I guess I would say repeat them or whatever. My husband is really good at at imitating the characters in movies, especially those kind of animated movies, and he does them really, really well. But I have a daughter who does Sid the Sloth, and she's always done it, and my my own son does son does it as well. So they like to talk like Sid. But I have to say, that is probably one of my favorite parts of all of the Ice Age movies, is Sid, right? He's the comical one and his laziness and the way he's portrayed. The other movie I thought about is Zootopia, if you've seen that one. That's another animated one. And there is a sloth that works at the DMV. So they go in there and they are trying to get something done and they're kind of in a hurry, right? And the the bunny, I forget the names, she's uh, and the fox, those two work together, the main characters, and they're kind of in a rush getting some things done, and of course they get there, and there's a sloth working at the counter making fun of the workers at the DMV. And it speaks very slowly, barely moving. The idea is that now I don't know where it all came from, but sloth is a vice, and it's something that is used to describe, I would say, in action or a lack of motivation, and we'll get into that. But I don't know if that came, if it was derived from the animal, the sloth, or if the animal is named, I don't know any of the backstory to all of that. But I just thought it was kind of comical because when you look at those animals, I got this visualization of just these really lazy, kind of funny, oofie kind of things. And uh it's just kind of funny to think about as we get into this today, because the word sloth to me, it just I don't know, there's certain words, I don't know if you're like me, but I don't know, they just kind of rub me the wrong way. Sloth is one of those words. Anyway, if you have ever felt stuck, felt like you just can't seem to get moving, of course we feel stuck for different reasons, right? Sometimes it's fear or different things. But if you just feel like you can't get yourself to do what you should do, even though you know you should do it, we're gonna look at some of that today, because it might be that you're struggling with sloth. And so when we talk about sloth, one of the biggest issues with sloth is that it it keeps us stalled. It keeps us in a place of not growth, right? It's just stagnant. Whereas diligence, it moves us into our purpose, it keeps us moving forward, it keeps us on the right track. But I do want to say this sloth, it's not just about laziness. I mentioned laziness, and that's kind of the image that we get. And we can look at other people who maybe we're we think might struggle with sloth, or that we're could categorize as somebody who is slothful. It isn't just about laziness, it can be sort of a spiritual dullness as well that resists effort of any kind or responsibility or growth or movement. Whereas diligence, it's an empowered choice to engage fully in the life that we've been given. I want to just again get back to what a vice is and what a virtue is. If you didn't hear last week, and I want to explain what this is, because again, for some of you, this might be not real familiar, but vice is just really a habitual pattern that pulls us away from God's design for our life. Sometimes we can interchange that with sin. I don't know if that's always accurate in a very general way, unwanted or bad habits, right? That don't move us towards the person or the that we want to be or that God created us to be. Now, virtue is just a practice habit that aligns us with the character and purpose that we've been called to. And I just want to say this again: we don't, we don't overcome vice strictly by willpower, which is what the world will often tell us is that if we just try harder, we do more. It's important that we replace these unwanted habits and these things with virtuous habits. And that also requires us to call on the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. Sloth, it's spiritual, but it's also emotional and physical resistance to any effort required to live fully alive, to live our lives of purpose. And that's the key that I want to hit on here, and that's why I think it's so important, is that it keeps us away from living a life that is full and a life that aligns with God's purpose for us. Sloth is not resting. If you're someone that struggles with sloth, can often use the excuse that we're just resting. And yet we need to make sure that we're aware of the fact of what rest is and when it's appropriate, and when we're actually avoiding doing the work that God has called us to, taking responsibility for the things that God has given us responsibility over. God has designed us for rest, yes, but sloth often it's avoidance. And how does sloth show up? Procrastination, it could be passive scrolling, right, instead of taking purposeful action. It could be avoiding difficult conversations, it could be staying stuck in comfort zones and not wanting to step out of your comfort zone. And it can be neglecting spiritual disciplines, which are required for us to grow. So let's get a little bit more clear about what sloth is and how it can show up specifically in your lives, right? And what it looks like. So there's some other terms, as I talked about last week, that are they kind of fall into the category of sloth, and it might give you a little bit better understanding or an idea of what it looks like in our day-to-day lives. And some of these will show up more obviously to some of you. Like we may struggle in these a little bit more than the others, and some like you may resonate with them more so than others. But here's just a few of them. And the first one, now I just said it's not necessarily laziness, which it's not necessarily just laziness, but it can be a form of laziness, and it's a term that we use here. So laziness is just an unwillingness to exert effort when effort is needed, period. It's pretty simple. Resisting action even when we know that something is important. And so what this looks like for us is putting off prayer when we know that looking at our phone, looking at Facebook, Instagram, scrolling, it's easier. Delaying an important conversation, like I just mentioned, or waiting for the motivation instead of choosing discipline. That's a big one, you guys. We feel like we need to be motivated to do things. And actually, that's not true. If we wait for motivation, we're gonna be waiting a long time. What we really, really need is to just choose the disciplines and the practices and just do them. The next one is negligence. And negligence is really just failing to give the proper attention to our responsibilities that have been entrusted to us. That seems pretty obvious when it comes to if you're a wife or a mother or a husband or a father at work. There are certain things that we know are our responsibility. And if we just are not doing them or giving them proper attention, that's negligence. And what that looks like for us is just ignoring small but important tasks. And often we can ignore these things and just kind of let them go. It's not important, not important. And then sometimes they get to be, they can turn into big things. They can turn into a big crisis because we've neglected them over time. This is true for our health. If we're kind of neglecting what we should be doing, moving, eating the right things, nourishing our bodies, taking in water, all the things that we know we're supposed to do. If we don't do that, we don't necessarily notice it right away. We don't notice it that day. But over a period of time, we can also find ourselves in a health crisis. Now the next one is not following through with our commitments. Now we've committed to do something and we don't follow through with it. That's negligence. Or in our spiritual lives, it can just kind of look like coasting instead of continuing to nurture our relationship with God. We just say, I'm good. You know, it's just showing up, doing the bare minimum, going to mass or whatever that might be for you, or going through the motions and not really nurturing their relationship. Now the next one is apathy. Apathy. So that's apathy, is it's a lack of emotional engagement. And so when somebody's apathetic, they're just sort of unattached. They're not engaged. Disengage is probably a good way to say it. So it's, and for spiritually, that can look like spiritual indifference. For myself, there was a long period of my life where that's that's where I was. And maybe you find yourself there now, maybe you've been there at times. But to become aware of that and what that can look like for us is I know I should care, but I just don't. It's realizing even maybe that you don't have that you're not engaged and really not caring about it. It could be feeling a little bit numb towards your own growth or even others' needs. That's another way that apathy could be. Now, this next one, I really debated including this. I really did when I was going through different aspects of sloth, but I'm going to because I think it's super important. But I just want you to hear me out when I get into this. Sorry, I can't even say it. Effeminacy. It's actually in its classical sense, what that really is, it's not about gender insult. Today, that is referred to as uh like a male maybe showing up in a feminine or having like female characteristics. And so it's got a whole different meaning right now. But since it in in Christian virtue teaching, it really revers it refers to the avoidance of rightful difficulty or discomfort. So this is a very has a very classical virtue teaching that dates way back, way back to early, early church teaching. And so I'm including it here for that very reason because it's important, because the definition that I'm using and that it was traditionally or classically known as, is avoiding necessary discomfort, sacrifice, or discipline. And it's choosing ease over strength of character. And what that looks like is quitting when growth gets uncomfortable. It looks like avoiding honest feedback because it feels unpleasant. It looks like choosing comfort over conviction. And I the reason I felt so called to include that is I think that we have a crisis of this right now in our time. I think we see this all over, is so many people, myself included, struggle with choosing comfort as our ultimate, ultimate good. And this is just not as a not in our even just in our lives as a whole, but like in each moment of our days, we kind of have a crisis of people just desiring comfort over doing the difficult things, avoiding things that make us uncomfortable. We resist those. And you know, how often do we hear, you know, I don't feel like doing it? Or have you said it or thought it? Or how about your kids? So often, of course we don't feel like doing it. But does that mean that that should be what drives us and the decisions that we make in our lives? Of course not. Of course not. And that's really not been the case for most of history, at least, at least for a lot of it. So I think it's really, really important that we look closely at this one. And so if you're able, if you're someone who doesn't struggle with this or you've been able to overcome this vice, you know, that you are able to feel discomfort, to move into it, or to just acknowledge it and do it anyway, and to move forward, to resist that urge to seek comfort in every situation, honestly, you you will progress not only in your spiritual life by leaps and bounds, but also in a very worldly sense. You will have an advantage above most people. Because I do think that's a really big crisis in our time. Whether it's your health and fitness goals or in your business, practicing this virtue, the virtue of the opposing virtue of diligence and moving through this, is going to bear a lot of fruit in your life. So the next one is asedia. And really what that just means is spiritual sloth. So we talked about sloth as a whole. Acidia is really referring to the spiritual sense in our spiritual lives. So it's a deep spiritual weariness that just kind of resists the things of God. It's a sadness or even more likely a boredom towards spiritual life. Prayer feels pointless, spiritual practices feel dull and lifeless. And there's kind of a this temptation to just give up on pursuing God seriously that you don't really have any desire. And that too, you know, I think it's I think it's a problem for our times, and it's a problem maybe throughout all of history. I don't know. I know again, this is something that I have experienced in my own life, and I know many of you have or maybe are right now as well. This is the many different faces or the look of sloth. Laziness is about avoiding effort. Negligence is ignoring responsibility and apathy, is just sort of numbing. Effeminacy is fleeing discomfort, avoiding anything that makes us uncomfortable. An asetia is just spiritual sloth or resisting God and no desire to seek God. And so diligence is the virtue that we need to heal all of these. And now I want to just remind you that in Scripture, in Revelation 3.16, it states, Because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out. This is why spiritual indifference, this is why apathy, this is why sloth, this is why just kind of coasting along can be so dangerous. What are some of the negative effects of sloth on our lives? What is it, what does that show up like? You know, what is what's the problem with it? Well, emotionally, really what it does is it results in a lot of missed opportunities, regret, and actually it diminishes your confidence. We're not utilizing courage to step out of our comfort zone. We're not growing, we're not expanding. And the the more we avoid things and the less we take on and the smaller we stay, and the more we stay in our comfort zones, we don't become confident. You don't gain confidence. And spiritually, this just looks like we kind of have a weak prayer life. There's no growth, there's no deepening of our faith life and our walk with God. We're not able to discern what God is calling us to. So if you're someone that's like, I just don't hear God, I don't, I don't know, I don't I don't hear him. That's the result of some sloth in our life, spiritually related. And practically, what sloth does is it looks like settling. You're not living a life that's fully alive. We're living the abundant life that we're called to. Think of the people that you might be called to influence that you're not. So in a very practical sense, you're really, you're not living the purpose that you've been called to. It's not just about wasting our time, but it's also about wasting your potential. It's so important that we understand that we're called to do things, called to live a life of purpose and to use what we've been given. Because sloth is really, it involves avoiding responsibility. So let's now, we've talked enough about what sloth is. Let's talk about how to overcome it. Let's get to the good stuff. So diligence, what is diligence? Well, by definition, diligence is steady, faithful effort effort that's aligned with our purpose, God's purpose for our lives, even when we feel resistant or challenged by it. Diligence is not striving, but it's like a faithful stewardship of our energy and our time and our calling. Let's talk a bit again, as I did with sloth, what this shows up like in our lives, the different words, the different ways that it can be described or we see it lived out practically. I'm going to do the same thing here for diligence, because there's certain words that it that apply to this theme of diligence, this virtue. And the first one is perseverance, and you're all very familiar with that. Perseverance. It's just steady commitment to keep going. Even when things seem slow or that we, if we experience obstacles or it seems like it's taking too long, it's about persevering through. And we've all done this in our lives. We've all utilized perseverance. You haven't gotten where you are today if you haven't persevered in certain things. Whether that's in your marriage, whether it's in your education, work, your responsibilities as a parent, whatever that may be, some area of your life you've persevered. I know you can find evidence of that. And what this looks like is just staying consistent with a goal long after the excitement wears off. That's that's as basic as it can get. And it's choosing faithfulness over your feelings. All right. Next one is dedication. Dedication, which is really just wholehearted devotion to a purpose, a calling, or a responsibility. When you're dedicated to something, you've committed to it. And that's just showing up consistently for whatever it is that you've that is is your responsibility. And that could be family, ministry, work. It's honoring commitments, even when no one is watching. It's doing what matters most instead of choosing what's easiest. The next one is fortitude. Now that's a big word that is used a lot, usually within the setting of a faith or church, but it really is just inner strength that enables you to face difficulty, fear, or suffering without giving up. And so fortitude is the inner strength that enables you to do this. And so that's that can look like having hard conversations instead of avoiding it. It's standing firm in your convictions, even when you might be understood by loved ones or those people around you or others in the world. And it's about enduring a season of hardship without abandoning hope. So that's fortitude. The next one is resilience. We love resilience, don't we? And that's a word that's used a lot now. But resilience is really just the ability to recover and rise again after disappointment, failure, or setbacks. So to be resilient is to just it's getting back up. It's not allowing yourself to stay down. It's starting again after falling short. It's refusing to let your past mistakes define your future. And it's letting trials refine you rather than define you or defeat you. That's resilience. The next one is toughness. And toughness is really just the capacity to endure discomfort or challenge or pressure without collaboration. Collapsing or quitting. Very similar to some of the other ones. It can be, you know, doing what needs to be done even when it's not convenient. But it's also can look like holding boundaries even when others are pushing against them. Having this toughness is necessary in our world right now. And especially if you're a parent, we need to be tough with our kids and with others because there's a lot of influence out there. And so this also is choosing discipline over comfort. So these are some of the ways we see diligence in our lives. Perseverance keeps us moving, dedication keeps us faithful, fortitude helps us to stand firm. Resilience is about rising again. And so this is how it virtue is practiced daily in those ways. But let's also look at some practical ways that we can cultivate diligence in our daily lives. What are some ways that you can actually start to implement this? Well, as always, it just starts with one small, faithful step. Just one small step. It doesn't have to be anything big. When you notice yourself avoiding something that makes you uncomfortable or you're just wanting to say, I know I should do this, but I don't feel like it, it's just doing that thing anyway. It's pushing yourself to do it. Recognizing when sloth is showing up in your life. Just even understanding that and your awareness of it will call attention to it for and calling it out for what it is. Now the next one that I'm going to suggest is routines. For some of you, you you love routines and you try and stick to them. For some of you, you resist them by your, you know, based on your personality or your nature. You're somebody that prefers not to follow routines, but routines are super helpful, especially morning routines, evening routines, or when it comes to the spiritual life, there's certain practices, especially if there's things that you're trying to accomplish in your life and you're struggling with that. Routines is so helpful. Accountability is another one. Finding someone to hold you accountable, either if you're part of a group or calling on a friend or a loved one and just saying, hey, I'm really working on this. Can you just hold me accountable in a loving manner if you notice this? Or having you check in on a regular basis and making sure that things are done. Accountability is really, really big because sometimes we have a hard time honoring the commitment to ourself, but we're certainly someone who can honor a commitment to somebody else. So accountability. And of course, pray. When you have that moment of, I feel like I should do this and I don't want to, I'm putting it off. Say a prayer. Ask the Lord to open your eyes to what you should be doing and to just give you an awareness. Just say some prayers. That can be enough for the Holy Spirit to nudge you into movement. And then also remembering your why. Whatever it is that you're avoiding doing, there's something that you know you should be doing for a reason or that should be happening. Remembering your why or what you're called to, whatever that might relate to, if you're understanding the purpose, that can be enough to pull you into taking action or doing what whatever that difficult thing is or that moment of discomfort that is is happening. So the best advice that I can give to someone, if you're struggling with sloth, is just to ignore your feelings and do it anyway. It sounds so simple, but it's really true. Doesn't matter what you're feeling. Pretend that you have no choice. This is what you did, this is what needs to be done, this is what you decided you would do, this is the plan that was set out. I'm doing it what no matter how I feel. Just ignore how you feel and do it anyway. And for women out there, mothers, but for anybody really, I do want to just acknowledge too, this this isn't to just to overlook or diminish the fact that there is fatigue and overwhelm in our lives, right? Those are very real. Diligence is not about perfection. This isn't about trying to do everything perfectly and running ourselves into the ground because we're like, we need to do everything. That is not what it is. Diligence is really just about being faithful, being consistent, and being steady. It's just showing up in a very, it doesn't mean frantic, it doesn't mean rushed, it doesn't mean filling your schedules full of things. That's the opposite of that. And we need to make sure that we're not doing that, but it's just showing up and doing the consistent things that are are part of our responsibility day in and day out. And so I want to invite you as always, as we close, just to turn this into back on you, is some questions to ask yourself is where have I been avoiding effort? Where have I been avoiding effort that God might be inviting me into? Where in my life have I been avoiding doing the hard things or doing the effort that God might be calling me to? Where has there been a nudge that you just have this tinge of guilt or afterwards you kind of have regret or just leaves you feeling just not at peace? And the next one is what is one action that I can take this week? What's one small step? Just one small step. It doesn't have to be a lot. And once you start to do that, you're gonna have a sense of accomplishment. And there's just gonna be a moment of peace when you start to recognize and notice that you're doing these things, even though you may not enjoy them in the moment. There's this a sense of peace and accomplishment in doing those things. It's gonna propel you to continue to do that. Now, the title of this podcast, To the Heights, appropriately suggests that we are to climb, ascend, right? To do this, that means we must do the daily work, to put in the effort, to take the next step. As much as we want to seek comfort in our lives, we're not made for this, folks. We're really not. We're made for more. Now I know that these topics of virtues can be daunting. It seems a little bit preachy and a little bit heavy, but it doesn't need to be. And I just want to encourage you to continue to fight the good fight. Put in the work it takes each day. Really, when we're talking about the virtues and vices, this is really just about habit change, creating better habits in our lives. If that's if that sounds better to you, then then frame it that way. But it's necessary to put in the work it takes each day to improve in whatever area of your life that you find you could use it. And remember always that I'm right here with you on this journey. So until next time, onward and upward, my friends, to the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon Kcoaching.com. That's Sharon the LetterK Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.