As to the toil and hardship, if you feel at first unable boldly to face it, hide them from you, that they may not seem so formidable as sloth would represent them.
The work you have before you, perhaps, is to gain some virtue by many repeated acts of it, and with many days' toil; and the enemies you have to encounter seem numerous and powerful. Begin, then, these acts, as if you had but few to make, and but a short time to endure the conflict. Fight against one enemy at a time, as if there were no more to be resisted; and fight with full confidence that, with the help of God, you will be stronger than all who are against you. By this means sloth will gradually lose ground, and give place by degrees to the entrance of the opposite virtue.
The same plan holds good in prayer. If one hour is allotted for prayer, and to sloth the length of the time appears difficult, enter upon it with the intention of spending ten minutes; then, when that time has passed, take ten minutes more; and so you will pass easily through the remainder, until the whole hour is spent. But if, after ten or twenty minutes, you feel a violent distaste and difficulty in going on, leave off for a time, lest you become weary; but return again after a little while to the exercise you had quitted.
You should adopt the same course in regard
