[WirryWoo]

Not a creator myself, but I think I can try and take a stab at trying to answer the question you have.

Question 1: For those of you who are creatively inclined and engage in making stuff, how do you do it?

I think there is a logic-based response and a feelings-based response to this question. Both are equally valid solutions and will completely depend on you.

Logically speaking, high consistency and strong dedication is very important to enforce a routine that will help you share an idea that comes to mind in a very structured and consistent way (when an idea appears). Ideas can only appear when you consistently put effort in identifying them and dedication is important to push you to sharing them to your audience regularly.

Emotionally speaking, passion is very important instead. Your love for creating new ideas and trusting that your feelings will drive you to new places where you can motivate yourself and continue with the unknown journey will be the primary driver instead. Passion is feelings-driven and can only be identified by taking a very hard look at yourself and understanding who you are. Only you can identify if you have that passion or not.

A healthy balance of both dimensions of your personal self is in my opinion, the best way to find that drive.

Question 2: How do you improve in a meaningful way? Or on the flip side, how do you grapple with these feelings of inadequacy and imperfection?

Firstly, you need to realize that everyone's journey in life is different no matter however you look at it. Everyone's journey is so different that comparisons like "his work is better than mine" or "he's much further in life than I am" is foolish because at that point, you're comparing apples to oranges. If you want an accurate comparison, the best "person" to compare yourself with is the version of you yesterday, because both you and that version went through the same experiences minus the ones you create today.

So putting logic aside, you improve by being proud of incremental improvements you make each day. You let others continue with their journey while you focus on your own and create as much as you can, under the goal to self-improve and not to create the best idea possible. Invest your energy into that notion of self improvement, because once you do, you'll see that your supporters are the ones who support not just your ideas, but your own journey. It's a much powerful way to build yourself motivation than giving yourself the pressure to deliver good ideas with the expectation of receiving support from them.

My answer probably reads nonsense to most people, but I really hope this helps you.