I've been doing motion design for 8 years. At first, I was good at copying. Bad at original thinking. I could rebuild anything I saw on Behance or Dribbble. But starting from a blank canvas? That was a different story. Then I started doing something small. Before I open any reference, I sketch the first idea myself. On paper. Ugly, rough, doesn't matter. Sometimes the sketch is terrible. Sometimes a piece of it ends up in the final work. The point isn't the sketch. The point is training my brain to go first instead of waiting to copy. 8 years in and I'm still learning the basics. That's either embarrassing or honest. Probably both 🤝