Adversity is your ally (and so are obstacles)

"At my workshops with universities and research organisations, we tend to spend quite a lot of time on an exercise called “Jumping Obstacles” (based on the card deck “75 tools for creative thinking” by Cordoba Rubino/Hazenberg/Huisman, by the way). This has proven to be very helpful; and if you’re interested in the science behind this, you might want to read about Gabrielle Oettingen’s research: it shows that plain positive thinking is actually harmful, but having a vision and combining this with developing a strategy to deal with upcoming obstacles will help enormously with reaching one’s goals...."