People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.

You cannot get much better than yourself if yourself is the only reference you have. Working alone, standards drift toward whatever you happen to produce, and it becomes impossible to tell the difference between a habit and a decision. Exposure to work better than yours is uncomfortable and is the fastest correction available.

Find one example of your kind of work done unmistakably better than you can do it, and study it closely enough to see how it was made. Not for imitation, for calibration. If you can find a person rather than a finished piece, better still.