In several blog entries, I have talked about the fantastic work that Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues have done examining how to succeed at achieving difficult goals. Her work explores the way that our thoughts of the future help us to achieve desired goals. You might think that the best way to achieve long-term goals that are important to you is to focus on how wonderful your life would be if you succeed. That kind of advice has been part of appeals to the power of positive thinking from Norman Vincent Peale to The Secret.