My feeling is that if people have trouble finishing anything by pantsing, then they should try outlining. If outlining is too restrictive, try pantsing. I've mentioned this before, but try writing something you don't care about as much. Write it until it's complete and then pick it apart. See what you did that you like. I find that if you put all your effort into a passion project, you may be too busy focusing on making it perfect instead of putting all the working pieces together.
For me, I pantsed my first novel. I outlined my second, and I found there's a nice middle point between the two. I outline loosely.
First, I plan my plot lines loosely, getting enough to know in broad strokes where each of them is headed. I do this in Excel columns.
Second, any lore and very specific details get organized and are read over once and only once before I start into my first draft. I generally don't read them again until the first draft is finished.
Third, I sketch out a list of my scenes, planning out roughly what plot lines get dealt with in each scene using scene sequel format. This list of scenes is constantly in flux, with scenes getting added or dropped on the fly.
And finally, I start writing using the list of scenes as a rough road map. I only know roughly what's going to happen before I start into a scene, details and specifics get pantsed into the scene. Only the lore that I can remember gets put into the story in the first draft. This helps in eliminating information overload. And generally, if I don't remember it, it probably wasn't that important and I usually find something else that's better any ways. Once I finish a scene, I take note of if I was able to fit in all the plot threads I had originally planned originally to be in the scene. If I wasn't able to the scene list gets altered to accommodate the change.
I find this is a very flexible and organized way to work. Even though the outline for the story is continually changing, I always have a map of the general direction of where I'm headed. Since I have a road map, I can see how unexpected deviations in the plot will affect the story as a whole, and I can make an educated decision on if a deviation from the plan is a direction I want to go.
Any ways that's how I work. I find that having a plan of any sort helps me keep on moving ahead.
When I do run into rough patches I always fall back and focus in on three simple questions that I should know the answer for. Thinking about the answers to these questions and how they apply to the point in the story where I'm stuck is a great help in finding my way again when I'm lost.
The questions are as follows.
1 -What does my POV character(s) want, physically and emotionally?
2- What's preventing my POV character(s) from achieving their physical goal and their emotional goal?
3 - Does the character achieve their goals, and if they do what happens?