One thing that took me a long time to get in to was knowing what I should be doing when work isn't coming in.
Yes you can be cold calling, yes you can be doing other types of work not related to your craft, but I believe firmly that if you need new work, promoting yourself is a must in this time. But you might as well be promoting some of your work while you're doing it.
A friend of mine has the same philosophy, and luckily he's a really talented animator, so we have both been learning Unreal Engine 5, their new meta sound functionality is incredible.
Below are the fruits of our labour, I tried to not overly accent the subject passing each cliff edge, or make them too loud , when i did this it sounded far too busy, so i instead focused on trying to put us in the characters head... If you were falling down a seemingly bottomless pit, what would you be feeling?