The answer is that there's no secret gift and no secret techniques of drawing. Just people doing the thing over and over again, trying new things and becoming better.
It's hard not to lose faith, still you need to compare yourself to the best and ask how is that you different from them. Most likely it would be that you didn't put enough work in what you do, you didn't update as much as they do, you don't have a particular zest that could be interesting for the readers - there are literally thousands of things why you're not as popular.
People don't see the time you put in what you do. They don't care if you made this gif for a week. It's either cool for them to look at, or not, and most of the content is just being glanced in within 5 seconds, so yes, it doesn't matter if it's a 5 mins sketch or a gif you made crying - people will probably pay pretty much the same amount of time looking at them.
I don't say it as "drop everything and you'll become popular making shitty sketches" though, because I believe it's crucial for the artist to become better, unless you wanna sit in the swamp degrading.
In the end maybe you don't even need a "big project", many popular artists don't have it at all, they just do art after art after art, and they post it every day for many many years. Yes, some do become popular immediately with 1 picture, but it's rarely the case.
I recommend checking "Tellurion" of Matt Rhodes. It's a comic that consists of 1 picture without words and he updated it for a few years religiously. It has a plot, but I think the fact he's only making 1 picture for a scene is more relaxing somewhat. It's just some characters doing something in one place. Maybe it would be more suitable for you to think of something like it.