Most retouching mistakes do not begin in the details. They begin earlier, in the way the image is read.
Before I zoom in, I try to understand the photograph as a whole. The light, the balance, the expression, the styling, the way the eye moves through the frame. If that first reading is wrong, every correction that follows can move the image further away from what was actually working.
You can misunderstand a shadow and soften something that was giving the face structure. You can read an uneven area as a problem when it was part of the lighting. You can clean a detail that looked accidental but was helping the composition. Technically, each correction may be done well. The image can still become weaker.
This is one of the things experience changes. Earlier in my career, I probably looked at separate details much more quickly. Now I tend to notice when something feels slightly off before I can immediately explain why. Then I look longer and eventually find the reason: a proportion, a shadow, a piece of fabric, something around the face, a small imbalance in the frame.
I think years of working with images create a kind of visual memory. You have already seen so many faces, textures, lighting situations, and retouching decisions that some things register almost automatically.
That is why retouching does not really start with the first tool or the first adjustment. It starts with understanding what the image is doing before you touch it.
Sometimes the most important correction is recognizing that something does not need correcting at all.