Howdy sir hermannsol! oh yes, growth has dang near stopped for almost everyone. It's very painful. The best way I know to grow your sp is by being whitelisted by ocdb, then you can send them steem and you get that amount back plus 10 or 12% in sp. You can either be nominated for their whitelist or nominate yourself which I think most do. I think you have to get information on how to do that by going to their discord which I never have but it's https://discordapp.com/invite/k2Hu77b

The other thing you can consider doing is to join powehousecreatives and you can find all the information about them here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@jaynie/jaynie-1558467929755-an-invitation-to-join-our-steem-powerhouse

I'm a member and they really support each other. There are so many groups you can join but I don't know much about the others and you are already using esteem which is best platform. The best thing to do is what you're doing, which is staying consistent and getting more people's attention as you grow and hopefully pick up some big players along the way.