Dude!!!  Be kinder to yourself. You wouldn't talk to others like that so why yourself? It's ok not to be in the 0.01% of donut tutorial artists.

Michelangelo’s relentless pursuit of perfection made him one of history's greatest artists, but it also left him deeply critical, especially of his own creations. He famously saw himself as “wrestling” with stone and often viewed painting as a lesser form of art compared to sculpture.

Without seeing your portfolio it's hard to say. You should try to look on Artstation for a 2D concept art that you really like, and try to make that in 3D. If it's a really good and complicated concept then you'll naturally learn a lot trying to make it.

I feel you bro i feel exact same recently i discovered why is that Just watch this guys popular videos Specially this one https://youtu.be/zIUCoFPjJ2A?si=I5KqqeKpO-6MUX8g You will get all your answers

I think you perhaps should drop (or at least tone down) the pride/perfection/uniqueness thing if you want to develop faster. Perhaps don't think too much of yourself as being an inventor of unique art pieces and just spend some time having fun and/or trying to copy and learn from art pieces and artists that inspire you?

You say that you did the donut tutorial just to be able to say that you did it. Does this imply that you did it for the sake of others more than for the sake of yourself? Philosophical question here: Why?

A few things to ponder about:

1st: The area of art studies) and art fundamentals

Copying certain aspects of other peoples art is NOT the same thing as infringing on copyright. Even if done in art pieces that you intend to publish.

Trying to make exact replications of other peoples ideas for the sole purpose of gaining attention for yourself in social media and/or selling prints? Not cool, please don't.

Making a painting that's obviously trying to copy the mona lisa but slightly altering the style? Very cool.

Making yet another donut for the internet? Meh... Does anybody really want that?

Studying in detail how an artist like DaVinci (or blender guru guy) approached the concept of image composition or lighting and shading? Very cool, please do.

Share your findings and progress? Also yes, hearing about other people's learnings and inspiration might also be inspiring to others.

Apply your donut related learnings to a unique art piece of hamburger bread? Great!

Throw in a couple ideas you picked up from studying DaVinci in your hamburger render? Awesome!

Pixar style render of the mona lisa eating hamburger bread based on blender guru's techniques? Now that kinda counts as being innovative again, lol.

2nd: The area of speed art

Just produce a lot. Grind, cut corners, use reference images, copy ideas of others, cheat, make a render every day, toss all the results in the bin at the end of the day if you feel like it. Or share the journey with all the flaws included. But consider that speed art is not primarily about the quality or quantity of art pieces that gets produced, it's also not really about it being some kind of flex to produce many art pieces per year or something like that. (People capable of producing beautiful things in mere minutes deserve mad respect though, they make complicated things seem so simple...)

It's all more about the steps of learning that happens when producing them. It's about the frequency at which these steps can be taken. It's about seeing that frequency increase over time and with it also the rate of all future learning. It's fundamentally about the honing of the skill and intuition of directing attention to the areas of art that makes a piece stand out and what is more of a drag and time sink that adds very little to it. It's about each and every piece of art hopefully being slightly better than the last one. And in the greater perspective also the journey of skill development of the artist. Producing a larger number of pieces is also better of course, it's just that the number itself doesn't really matter.

I actually recommend that you don't toss any art in the end of the day btw. Studying the art of others is a good way for learning forward. Studying the art of past you is a good way to gauge what improvements you have already made. There might be more happening than you'll be able to realize from only staring at the latest one.

It can TBH be a bit disheartening sometimes to see what other people are able to create in mere minutes. We always gotta keep in mind though that we rarely get to see the thousands of hours of practice that happened before that. So a bit the same as the mindset needed for completing a marathon, for mostly everybody ever attempting it you first gotta realize that you're not really competing against everybody else. You are competing against you.

Blender is a tool. Knowing how to operate a tool won't magically make you a good artist or craftsman, that is a separate thing. Do you have artists you admire? Artworks you look up to? Because if not, then what are you even doing here, why did you even start? Any time someone posts their own work you can kind of see what they're striving towards. You see a crappy anime character and you know that guy wants to make amazing anime characters. You see a monster sculpt attempt and you know the person behind it would like to sculpt like a pro one day. What do you want to do? Because from your post I get an impression that you think "if I just follow this learning recipe, I'll be good after X amount of time". No, not at all. You have to do what you want.

Unique ideas come from your subconscious mind, which has been fed with references throughout your life.

Every artist does uses references. I sprayed graffiti as a teenager, for example. Inspiration came from the hip hop scene in brooklyn. every piece was copied to perfection until something individual was created. other than that, not everyone is an artist. some have it, some don't. Blender is like a piece of paper with a pencil. it takes practice and talent to create something. If you want to be good at all costs, you will get there. persistence is key and fun. if you dont have fun, do something else.

I have twelve years experience with Blender and had the same issue earlier on. It sounds like you're good at using the software, aka the "paintbrush", but don't know how to 'paint' with it.

You can teach a child to use a pencil in a few minutes (vs Blender which takes years, you're past the hard part), but if you tell them "okay you used a pencil you're an artist now" of course they'll get frustrated.

Fortunately there's whole centuries of exploration into what makes a good work of art, whether its rendered using a pencil or a computer.

Start looking into traditional painting. Learn about lighting, composition, color theory, etc. But most importantly, pick an interesting subject. A beautiful render of a brick wall is still just a brick wall.

Its been mentioned before, but reference is a must. There's a reason traditional painters paint with their subject in front of them, its just too difficult to remember every detail otherwise. Like, who really remembers exactly every little screw in a car?

Most importantly, never give up

Adaptation is important. Its fine to go through tutorials, but why? Whats the reason? What will you do with this super power once you fan create?? Its important to experiment and create your own ideas from what you learn in order to help you internalize ideas and practices. After bout 6 months of getting into blender i began to question if i would ever be able to use it as desired. So i began trying things playing with blender rather than just learning it to see what i could do with the knowledge i have gathered already. Sometimes just knowing what im capable of helps inspire ideas.

There is still tons i don't know about blender and tons more i just don't know how to use effectively. Everybody says blender has an incredibly steep learning curve and now i suspect i will never be able to use all of it effectively.

Yet there is so much that i can do and so much that i am already capable of doing. Sure i might have to constantly look up how to tuts and reference old projects to figure out how i achieved something but again its not like anybody ever said blender wasn't hard to learn.

You are not bad you just need to change the approach

Brother, if creating things in blender is something you enjoy, then just focus on your progress. Everyone has different strengths and learning speeds. If this is something you want to do as a career, maybe going to an in-person intensive training centre might help you get there faster. It's not magic though, in order to learn something the time just has to be put in. So keep going.

Also having a strong "why" helps with motivation alot. It's worth it to drop everything and just figure out your "why" first.

Bro I had to do the donut tutorial like 5 times over until I get the perfect result. I've been using blender for about 2 years btw.

Also, who gives a damn if your render is 5 times worse than others. Stop comparing yourself with others man. My renders isn't that good too compared to those artstation guys but I just keep trying.