I arrived in a big city 17 years ago with no money, no job, no place to live, I grew up in a developing country so was told my high school diploma was worth zilch. Today I work as a director and producer of tv shows, earned over 150k last year. What worked for me was to set early on what my goal was and then move up the ladder focusing on moving from rung to rung, rather than thinking too much about the daunting big picture. If you set your mind on something, you can write emails to people who you admire or would like to be like, and ask them for advice. As a matter of fact, a guy sent me an email last year doing precisely that, and we met for coffee, turned out he was perfect for my next big project and I hired him as an Assistant Producer, which was a big step up for him. Never give up hope, a big break might be just around the corner.