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ygert comments on Narrative, self-image, and self-communication - Less Wrong
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A somewhat related thing that I do is to read/watch stories with clever/intelligent/rational (or whatever I want to be) characters such as Death Note/HPMOR (I have a bunch of other examples) which both seems to prime me to think a bit like them (or to enter in a mode where I think that my narrative is similar to theirs) and also gives me role models on which I can fall back to in some situations (like in your Naruto example). This has definitely at least partially worked (might be placebo) as I almost always have more motivation on which I act to study/do productive things after watching/reading such a story.
I want to second this. This is a prime example of how self-image can be very useful. I myself do something similar. Yes, I would say that it is very possibly at least partially a placebo effect, but that doesn't matter, because what I care about is getting the benefits, and whether the benefits come from the placebo effect or a more direct effect, in either case I benefit. (That said, I do think that at least some of this effect does come from the self-image narrative change as discussed in this post, and the effect is not entirely a placebo.)
Yes, I agree that as long as there are positive effects I don't mind them being placebos. I should however note that when you do things like this (reading fiction partially for the positive effects on your self-image) you can fall into the trap of procrastinating by just reading/watching such stories and thinking that you are doing something somehow productive while actually doing less 'real' work of any value.