I didn't start experimenting for about the first decade after I started cooking. I followed recipes, and learned the basics. After you're feeling good about the outcome of a certain recipe, then comes time to tweak some parameters. Or, reframe what you consider "experimenting" to look like. Pick a dish you want to master, and find 10 recipes. Do each one (depending how much variety you want in life, this can take 10 days or 10 weeks). Take notes about what went right, what went wrong, what directions were unclear. Try and draw conclusions. That's an experiment! After that, maybe try and wing it, or mix&match parts of different recipes, to find what works for you.