Isn't that kind of like saying "the key to being successful is to succeed"? Poetics is inspiring and all, but real life beats it every time.
No, it's akin to saying "the key to success in accomplishing your goals is defining them." If "real life" is beating you, perhaps it's time for you to review how and why you're doing things. You're not in a competition with your life, you're in control of it.
Poetics they may be, but what we tell ourselves, in whatever form, goes a long way towards determining our success in accomplishing our goals. It's a page, I suppose, from performance psychology. If every time I went on stage I told myself, "I can't do this, I'm a hack, I'm beyond my abilities," I'd be defeating myself despite reality. Preparation psychology is the same thing, really - if I used that negative mantra, I'd give up before I started. There's not much to life besides performance and preparation.
A big part of succeeding in doing something is deciding to do it in the first place. Many people like to believe they're not in control, because it's the perfect excuse for apathy: "I might as well not even bother trying to do that, because [such a factor] is an inextricable impediment to success." Yes, there are limits to what we can accomplish and how, and blueroomelectronics began this thread with a suggestion of how some kinds of factors can be manipulated despite what at first might seem insurmountable limits.
What you need to do is acknowledge what those limits are, instead of just presuming them. This is the flaw in most people's thinking that prevents them from being successful. They stop believing they can do things, and begin reciting the negative mantra. The most repressed students I have are so because they've been taught to believe, "I can't."
What theses students need, as a kind of rehabilitation, is to be inspired to believe, "I can." That state of belief - the capacity for imagining success - is the healthier, most human state of mind that empowers people to accomplish the tasks they set themselves to. If only there was some powerful way to persuade people in a positive fashion, free from overt interference, and some word to describe that type of inspiring rhetoric... ah, yes:
Poetics.