The value in the expertise of mastering is primarily in the thinking, not the doing. Yes, you need to know what knobs to turn to get to an intended result, but you must have the destination in mind before you start. Otherwise how do you know when you’re done?
An experiment along these lines:
Set up an album or EP worth of material for your regular mastering workflow. Now without touching any gear (other than your monitoring volume - you can adjust this as needed) just listen to a minute or so of each song, while jotting down processing notes. It might look something like this:
Song One: +4db level, +2 10k, +1 50Hz
Song Two: +2.5db level, de-ess 7k, -4 30Hz
Song Three: +6db level, de-ess 7k, -1 120Hz, +2 10k, 1.5:1 -1GR slow/med
And so on…
Now take a break to clear your mind and ears of the material. Then come back and implement the settings.
How close did you come to nailing it? Do you still need to adjust or experiment a bit to be satisfied? The gap between your notes and the final result is the gap between your thinking and your doing, and it strongly biases towards the thinking with practice and experience.