I have to make a business dashboard, but I don’t want to use a flat design

TLDR: please help me or propose good study sources to give my flat design a level to something awesome (nothing crazy, within the rich of good UX, but not boring)

I’m just no more than the university. Fortunately I have assigned projects in my company where I have complete freedom.

Last year I was assigned a dashboard. Because it was my first time, I went completely flat, with drop shadows, in the hope that it looks sleek and modern.

I thought I only had to have margin and fill everywhere.

But something is missing. After working on this dashboard for 6 months, I am not satisfied. I cannot post images because it is business. But I want to increase my design for the next project.

Here are certain things I will try:

1) Focus more on UX (the feeling instead of the look, make sure that things flow smoothly instead of shocking)

2) Conservative animation for micro and macro interactions (nothing crazy than enough to facilitate smoothness

3) Focus remotely and typography even more

But I don’t know what else to do? I may want to introduce glass mororphism or neumorphism (that is all I could find when investigating the web), but there is no good YouTube -Resource diving in the science of these styles and how I can use them in a way that does not become cartoon -like.

I just want it to feel polished, but I want it to feel like “damn that is sexy”. It is for my own satisfaction. I enjoy the work.

If some experienced developers and designers can link me to good sources about how I can rise from my flat design, I would appreciate.