Ask Lemmy

What do you mean by "tried" and "skills"?
Those "skills" you listed are full careers.
If you didn't spend half a decade learning, studying, and practicing each one, you haven't "tried" anything.

Find something that somewhat suits your innate abilities first, rather than a completely random thing. Then look for that and stick with it to you gain the skills to move up and around.

I.e. I took art math and drafting in highschool, I found a placr looking for junior guys to move into engineering but first you had to do hands on shoo work to understand the business. It was 2 years on the shop floor and then 2 years nightlchool for relevent courses and 8000 hour apprenticeship for engineering. Nothing is instant.

1% reply rate on cold outreach is totally normal. You are basically spamming people. Do you reply to spam?

3 problems:

1. I dont see you say anywhere that you have a portfolio. You need a portfolio to show off to potential employers what you can actually do in these fields.
2. You say you quit in the boring middle part. Well... don't. People who go to school for graphic design go to school for years - even if the schooling isnt perfect, it is better than kind of aimlessly tooling around for a few weeks.
3. You don't have any connections. Like you noticed, your cold outreach response rate is abysmal. Of course it is. If a random stranger walked up to you on the street and asked if you want to be friends, you would probably be quite hesitant. But if you meet through a mutual friend, at a party, or in a hobby club, you will be much more interested in meeting them. 80% of jobs are never posted on online job boards, because they are filled via informal social connections.

quitting before the "boring middle part" even ends.

What is your plan?

You are talking about "a skill" as if it were some kind of magic key and then suddenly the world is saved. But nobody knows how you want to save the world once you got your magic key. How do you want to proceed with that skill? What is your plan?

I have a feeling that there is so much more where you possibly have made mistakes, and possibly could ask for advice, but you are asking just about that one oddly specific thing "a skill".

2 things, do you actually care about any of these skills you listed? Or is it like how I feel about accounting or wood carving?

Second thing is, have you tried slipping in the side? Get a job where you can move your career towards doing that?

I don't get it.

A magic fix for what exactly?

Responses to cold calling are a poor indicator of success. That's just not how businesses obtain services.

How did you learn these skills? If someone told me they had learned logo design my first thought would be is that they have no idea about design because that's not how people talk about it.

I'm an SEO Specialist/Content Manager and I would never hire someone for SEO, copywriting or social media who doesn't have a portfolio of work to show demonstrated experience for other brands. Plus most big companies outsource to agencies for contract type work, so I'm assuming you were reaching out to smaller businesses, but they would just get their marketing person to do it to save money.

I was always a sport and hobby hopper growing up and rarely stuck with the same thing long enough to get good, just competent. The two exceptions are biking and dancing.

In dancing there's a common story about getting good: When you are new, you know you are bad at it, and go to beginner classes. When you get better you start overestimating yourself and going to classes well above your skill level. When you get good... you know you suck and you go to your friend's beginner classes.

The people I dance with tend to appreciate solid basics and good etiquette over perfect flashy moves. Never lose sight of the basics because the 1% that makes you stand out at something relies of the 99% foundation of becoming competent that you build by being a well rounded human being and putting in the time to get some experience.

Good luck!

I did lots of lead climbing (rock climbing up big walls with a rope). I never thought bouldering (rock climbing super short routes with pads under you and no rope) to be worth trying. I supplemented my lead climbing with bouldering just for the heck of it. I stuck with it for a few months which is what it took me to adapt my skills and learn new techniques required for bouldering. I messed around and had fun while bouldering until I started to feel what the new techniques were, then started watching videos on how to boulder and pieced it together now that it made sense. Bouldering has made me much more proficient at lead climbing and I'm glad I stuck with it. Now I find it enjoyable as something fun and challenging but ultimately still like lead climbing more.