The creative practice is not a prescripted practice. There are no rules or steps. Every journey, your journey is in itself unique. That is its biggest strength.
The uniqueness of one's creative journey is what ultimately brings authenticity to our practice. The number of experiences, failures, frustrations, "aha" moments, are the myriad spices we add to our dish. Unique in itself, things you can't buy in the supermarket
I used to believe that my art was meant to be perfect, an outcome, a trophy. Something I can place somewhere that brings people to admiration. To unspoken joy. I was, to my own damage, identifying myself too much with what I created. The object itself, the result.
I guess that's why I couldn't identify myself as a creative person, my ego was just too attached to the objective of the process, to the result of it. And since I was not, of course, able to produce something that I myself thought was perfect. I never really produced something, all the efforts of creation were merely an effort to compare one work to the other and say, this is yet not good enough.
Of course it was not, and it would never be perfect. I was unaware that I was taking out the failures from the process, failures are the most important thing in a creative process.
From now on, I don't identify myself with the object of my creation, a song, a text a lyric, a drawing. I'm no musician, nor a designer nor a writer. I'm none and all those things at the same time. Putting a label to it meant to me, to identify again with the object of my creation, to bring perfectionism back to the equation. To never ship work.
Creative people, create. Their identity as creators lies in their creative process. In showing up to do the work, in failing to do the perfect work, but succeeding to show up for the process. That's the fuel to their identity, the process, not the outcome. The journey, your journey.