It's nice to have some sort of resistance.  Why?  It gives us something to work in.  I say work in  because without the very substance of being, we would not be able to work at all. 

"Can I kick it?  Yes you can," says Q-Tip of the rap group Tribe Called Quest. 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

    Old Time is still a-flying,

And this same flower that smiles today

    Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,  

   The higher he's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he's to setting,

That age is best which is the first,

   When youth and blood are warmer,

But being spent, the worse, and worst

   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;

   And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.

-Robert Herrick  (1591-1674)

Judy's got these menthol toothpicks that I can role around in my mouth, but when  I bite too hard on them I get a blast of menthol so fierce that it stings my tongue.  Great Scott!

Here's a three pronged question for you:

At what point can we make success more successful by calling it success?  Kurt Vonnegut said something to the effect of, be careful of who you pretend to be because that is who you become.  Socrates was put to death for making the worse seem the better.  

What is success?  Is it possible?  Is it rooted and based on free will?  If we had free will, would it be possible to be successful?  How?  If we didn't have free will, would the circumstances change?  How much does motivation concern itself with these things?    

That is, it's a compound question of:

1)  Success in a materially real sense

2)  Success in a rhetorical sense

3)  Success in a way that we can force the move of 2 to 3

The other name for 3)  is the placebo effect, the end-plot to Disney's Dumbo;  and also the basis of much self-help, and new age spirituality literature.  The flip-side of this is bullshit;  also known as the quote from Vonnegut above.   

The best conclusion I can give right now is that there is a very fine line between the three, and we have to be very, very careful.