I have commitment issues...

"Before you even write a word, you need to make the commitment to yourself that you will see this through to the very end. If not, don’t bother starting because you’ll only end up frustrated and feeling like a failure if you decide to stop half-way through. Know that you’re worth it. Stick with it for 30 days and it’ll become a habit", says Elizabeth Rose.

I have commitment issues. I'm ready to commit myself to anything, but I never really do... I just won't stick to it.

I don't know what it is... I suppose I'm afraid to death of success, so I sabotage it for myself.
I am really into "it" for the first days, but it's usually three months that is my limit. Often it's just three days.

It's not that I am not serious, it's that I get cold feet and run back into the comfortable apathy.

You see... I'm an overachiever, workaholic, perfectionist. I ALWAYS give either 110% or nothing. If one constantly keeps giving more than one has or can, one dries up very, very quickly. One gets burned out. I have the wax, but not the wick, so there's no flame either.
I have been in that situation too many times, always getting into something, giving everything, and then... people start expecting you can keep up with that standard. Sure, they say that the more you achieve, the easier it is for you to achieve more, but it really doesn't work that way... and then I have difficulties in saying "no", demanding my boundaries are respected and asking for help, like all codependent adult children. :-> I find it also hard to reward myself, or accept rewards.
It is really hard to fill up again, or to keep the in-flow as rapid as the out-flow. Eventually the pool gets filled up again, the candle gets a new wick, but I'm so afraid it will happen again, so I sabotage myself to protect myself from the future catastrophe, which I am inable to protect myself from in the "normal" ways. (respecting boundaries, demanding my boundaries are respected, also by me; delegating, asking and accepting help, taking time to rest and recreation, and letting go of perfectionism and the high expectations I have on myself.)

I'm so terrified of it that I won't even dare to write 50.000 words... I don't even dare to finish a first draft of a novel... even when that doesn't require anything else. The expectations are there, my expectations... if I write the first draft, I MUST edit it and rewrite it and make it good, send it to a publisher, get it published, start traveling around the world and market the book and have book signings and all kinds of things... and then everyone will expect I repeat it, over and over again, and write many books, and...

My therapist tried to make me take tiny steps.

I just need to write 1665 words on November 1st.

That's it.
Nothing else. Nothing more. There is nothing before, nothing after, no editing, no publishing, no life as a writer.
Just 1665 words.

I can do that.

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To something else...

"Research shows that males tend to be more internally oriented than females. Men tend to believe their success strategies are based on themselves. Older people tend to have an internal locus of control as well – and so do people in more advanced professional situations, such as managers or corporate heads. It makes sense: they've realized that the success strategies they've used to achieve their goals are based on their own efforts."

As long as women blame patriarchy, men, what ever, for spoiling it for them, they will never be empowered. It is only when they realize their failure to reach equality lies within, will they reach the equality.