How can I overcome my inability to control Blender?

Every time I start a new project, I end up not being able to control what I want to control.  I can’t apply the procedural textures the way I want to, I can’t rotate the particles correctly, I can’t make the topology flow how I want it to, etc.  As a result, most of my time is spent on Discord asking for help, and I barely get anything done.  Example:  I tried to make a mountain.  It looked like this:

I am not satisfied with the rock color.  It’s always either too gray or too blue.  In the reference, I see a mix between multiple colors.  However, trying to use a colorramp either blurs them together and makes a messy brown, or it make hard, rigid lines that have too much contrast.

I can’t get anything to do what I want it to do.  Every time I do anything other than follow a tutorial, the result is a failure.  I don’t mean the kind of failure that comes from a lack of experience; I mean the kind of failure that has me looking at reference images and having no clue how I am supposed to recreate it.  Everything in the real world is more complex than “noise to filter between two materials and a bump map”.

How can I solve this problem and start learning better?