It's interesting, a lot of things I hated in my artwork wasn't the art itself, or the ideas.
It was the mistakes I made in the piece, and the belief that that's the only thing that people would notice in my artwork. It made me realize how much of my creative voice I was giving away. Now stuff that I made last year I'm starting to actually appreciate a little bit.
I'm starting to look at the things I've worked on and realize I don't need more academics to fix my art. Fixing my art just comes from surrendering a bit more to my subtle impacts (angles, details, relaxing etc ...) against more challenging concepts. Now when I see other art that impresses me, they aren't meant for me to work on, but things for me to consume. Like a conversation of art.