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Push him away, softly smack his paws (one or two-finger tap), ... For young cats I find that "the Claw" works well too. Essentialy, playfully attacking him with "the Claw" reflects his behavior. It's not a matter of hurting him, it's a matter of making him realize that when he pounces on you, then you can pounce on him. If you match or surpass him in playful ferocity, he'll understand that you can outclass him and that he maybe shouldn't be poking the bear.

I'm at the end of my thether. So upset. I feel a failure. I need help.

Push him away, softly smack his paws (one or two-finger tap), ... For young cats I find that "the Claw" works well too. Essentially, playfully attacking him with "the Claw" reflects his behavior. It's not a matter of hurting him, it's a matter of making him realize that when he pounces on you, then you can pounce on him. If you match or surpass him in playful ferocity, he'll understand that you can outclass him and that he maybe shouldn't be poking the bear.

I'm at the end of my tether. So upset. I feel a failure. I need help.

Your cat's success at become mature (which includes not doing things that it wants to do but is not allowed) is a combination of you and him.
If you're currently unable to teach your cat something; then you haven't failed, your current method has. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Investigate why he's not getting it. Try to reinforce the point that he's not understanding. Tailor your method to the cat.

I've tweaked my escalation pattern for every cat I've raised. Not every cat is equal. Observe their behavior, find the flaw (= what you want him to change), then put the cat in a situation where that flaw becomes his weakness.

A great example of this is the first cat who I trained via escalation. He had a habit of meowing while sitting by the sliding door. I sprayed him, but he never really made any progress, he needed the spray every single time and I noticed that he was almost learning to never sit by the door. That was not the point of the lesson.
So instead of making eye contact with him, I started spraying him blindly. I reached around the couch and aimed blindly. Essentially, I started using his meows against him. Based on where the meow was coming from, I was able to pinpoint his location and hit him. Since I couldn't see him, I would be unable to hit him if he didn't make a sound. And that's exactly what I wanted. He was allowed to sit by the door, but if he made a sound, I would be able to spray him. It took a week or two for him to realize that not meowing would actually benefit him, and once he realized that, he stopped meowing.

• Be consistent. You're trying to make your cat realize that the consequences of his misbehavior are unavoidable.
• You can draft your own escalation steps. However, keep in mind that the end goal of every step is to inconvenience the cat. Do not starve, hurt, force or terrify your cat. If you do any of those, you're provoking him to respond instinctively. Instead, you should try to avoid instinctive behavior, and subtly urge your cat to make the right decision (cognitively).
• Always start from step 1. If you immediately spray the cat, then there was no verbal warning. If there was no verbal warning, he'll never learn to listen for verbal warnings.
• If the cat stops its behavior but does not walk away, and starts the misbehavior again after a slight pause, then repeat the current step. This means he somewhat got the hint, but it didn't quite stick when he got distracted again.
• If your cat walks away and stops the behavior, that is the end of it. He did what you wanted him to do. Do not chase your cat, do not continue to treat him as if he's misbehaving. Just like how you're teaching him that his misbehavior leads to unavoidable consequences, you should also be teaching him that a correct response (backing off) leads to no further negative feedback.
• The cat should make the decision to back off. You're simply trying to inconvenience the cat to help it make the decision you want it to make. But you do not make the decision for him. He needs to learn to behave himself. With the exception of the final step, which you should only ever resort to if he is consciously and willfully disobeying you.
• Remain calm. When you're angry or loud, the cat will see you as the aggressor, and that's not what you want. Look at how a mother cat reprimands her babies: she picks them up or pushes them away. She does not retaliate against her children nor hiss at them, because she doesn't think that her babies are intentionally antagonizing her. To the babies, their mother is an unavoidable force of nature. As a pet owner, your cat should see you as a similarly unavoidable force of nature.
• Reward him for not misbehaving for a while. You can also occasionally reward him for backing off (e.g. when you needed to escalate less than you usually do; which means he's making progress), but don't make it a habit because then you're teaching him to misbehave so that he can get an extra treat. Reward him for making progress (less escalation), don't reward him for doing something he was already capable of.
• If there are many things that he shouldn't be doing (e.g. 10 different things), don't use this pattern for everything all at once. Pick a top three, and apply the escalation pattern to the three most important things. When he becomes more comfortable with your escalation pattern, you can start using it for more situation. But if you immediately escalate for every little thing he does wrong, that may be too much for him to understand. You need to take it step by step. You can only teach the cat as fast as he is able to learn.

• Be consistent. You're trying to make your cat realize that the consequences of his misbehavior are unavoidable.
• You can draft your own escalation steps. However, keep in mind that the end goal of every step is to inconvenience the cat. Do not starve, hurt, force or terrify your cat. If you do any of those, you're provoking him to respond instinctively. Instead, you should try to avoid instinctive behavior, and subtly urge your cat to make the right decision (cognitively).
• Always start from step 1. If you immediately spray the cat, then there was no verbal warning. If there was no verbal warning, he'll never learn to listen for verbal warnings.
• If the cat stops its behavior but does not walk away, and starts the misbehavior again after a slight pause, then repeat the current step. This means he somewhat got the hint, but it didn't quite stick when he got distracted again.
• If your cat walks away and stops the behavior, that is the end of it. He did what you wanted him to do. Do not chase your cat, do not continue to treat him as if he's misbehaving. Just like how you're teaching him that his misbehavior leads to unavoidable consequences, you should also be teaching him that a correct response (backing off) leads to no further negative feedback.
• The cat should make the decision to back off. You're simply trying to inconvenience the cat to help it make the decision you want it to make. But you do not make the decision for him. He needs to learn to behave himself. With the exception of the final step, which you should only ever resort to if he is consciously and willfully disobeying you.
• Remain calm. When you're angry or loud, the cat will see you as the aggressor, and that's not what you want. Look at how a mother cat reprimands her babies: she picks them up or pushes them away. She does not retaliate against her children nor hiss at them, because she doesn't think that her babies are intentionally antagonizing her. To the babies, their mother is an unavoidable but fair force of nature. As a pet owner, your cat should see you as a similarly unavoidable but fair force of nature.
• Reward him for not misbehaving for a while. You can also occasionally reward him for backing off (e.g. when you needed to escalate less than you usually do; which means he's making progress), but don't make it a habit because then you're teaching him to misbehave so that he can get an extra treat. Reward him for making progress (less escalation), don't reward him for doing something he was already capable of.
• If there are many things that he shouldn't be doing (e.g. 10 different things), don't use this pattern for everything all at once. Pick a top three, and apply the escalation pattern to the three most important things. When he becomes more comfortable with your escalation pattern, you can start using it for a larger variety of situations. If you provide negative feedback for every little thing he does wrong, that may be too much for him to understand (he may end up feeling like he's not allowed to do anything, which will not make him a happy cat). You need to take it step by step. You can only teach the cat as fast as he is able to learn.