I'd say anger. Close second, denial. I am aware that these two aspects are at the very bottom of the generally accepted lists but they have been and still are my only way outs. Anger provides the juice, denial a sense of limitless optimism. I think that without a minimum of these two, we shrivel and die. That said, I consider myself lucky that, due to my psychological structure, anger is not turned against myself (i.e. depression) and that denial never fully violates reality (e.g. delusion). This combination has always generated enough energy and creativity to pull me out of stagnation. When anger runs out, because I'm tired mostly, I practice "wu-wei", do nothing. Failure doesn't exist for me: it is but a phase of improving. The meme "failure is not an option", pisses me off because I believe in just the opposite: failure is the only option. When I decide to make my bed first thing in the morning, as cleverly suggested by atroyn, it is out of anger. "I will not be negated". Same thing when I push through a rep that I don't want to do (at my age, pretty much every single one of them). Denial is, I believe, vastly under-rated. It sits along the path to the solution of any problem. It is the essence of out-of-the-box thinking. It is also what prevents us to think about our death all the time.