The big lesson women need to learn: no one is coming to save you

We’re groomed into thinking there’s a happy ever after

As I was listening to yet another man wax lyrical down the phone about how talented and gifted I was, it hit me like a sucker punch to the stomach. He couldn’t save me. He couldn’t make me finish a book, he couldn’t make me start that business, he couldn’t make me complete a painting. It was on me. It was all on me. He was yet another overly-optimistic romantic who believed he was on the cusp of greatness, and I was yet again swept up by it. This has happened to me so many times: I’m sure the women reading this will relate.

You meet someone magical, enchanting, passionate. You are enthralled by this handsome prince. You hang on his every word, giddy with praise and adoration for him. And gradually, you realise he hasn’t done anything exceptional in years. That his big ideas always go nowhere. That he wasn’t ever going to become the multi-millionaire entrepreneur he thought he was. That, like you, he is riddled with anxieties, exhaustion, burn-out, and a lack of perseverance. No: he wasn’t the man who was going to make you do incredible things. He is standing on your coat-tails. You were part of the fantasy. He is a distraction. It dawned on me, at last: if I was going to do something with my life, I had to find the strength, courage, and determination to do it on my own. No man was going to do it for me.