My personal confession is that I'm not a designer but I used to design a lot a decade+ ago. My friends, colleagues, and clients says I design really good websites. My trick was to follow patterns, sequences, and formulas.
I once, met an old colleague after 10 years, and told me they are still maintaining a website I designed for clinics and had made minimal design changes in that span of 10+ years.
I believe a thoughtful design is more about common sense.
I think Portuguese and French have a better expression for this: "good", not "common" sense. I'm mentioning it because this sense for design is not that common. You may not be formally trained, but you're a designer.
I once, met an old colleague after 10 years, and told me they are still maintaining a website I designed for clinics and had made minimal design changes in that span of 10+ years.
I believe a thoughtful design is more about common sense.