Proverbs 12:24
The hand of the diligent will rule,
But the slack hand will be put to forced labor.

Proverbs 12:27
A lazy man does not roast his prey,
But the precious possession of a man is diligence.

Patty and I targeted the character trait of diligence as we trained our kids to be champions for Christ as they grew up. If you target a character trait you need to have it defined clearly enough so that the strategy is clear and measurable. The clearer and the more precise the strategy the easier it is to do and measure the success in accomplishing it.

A person with the character trait of diligence will be a person who has goals, strong desires, and dreams. Diligence can exist for diligence’s sake in mature individuals but it is very hard to instill it in kids without a reason to be diligent. Diligence becomes a means to an end. With kids or with lazy individuals the key to training them to be increasingly more diligent is with highly desirable rewards. The pursuit of the reward will stimulate hard work and after a period of time of working hard to achieve goals or to earn a desired reward, diligence will become more and more an ingrained character trait, or as Proverbs puts it, a possession. Once diligence becomes a character trait the joy of working hard, fast, and efficiently becomes the motivation, working hard becomes fun. Accomplishment in and of itself is very rewarding and fulfilling.

If a person is going to successfully target a weakness, such as laziness, and train themselves to be diligent they will need to have already trained themselves to be humble or have been trained by others. If a person can’t examine their own life and accurately determine that they are lacking in diligence they will never accomplish it. We are so naturally self-protective that we become self-deceived and become blind to character deficiencies. The person who is serious about growing in character will seek counsel and input from a few trusted people who will be a reliable source of information on what they need to work on and how they are doing as they do target a weakness. Recruiting someone to be a personal coach in developing character traits is very, very effective. I am sure that the humility of such a decision brings about great blessing from God.