In my experience you need a goal to force progress. Ie. Play on a stage / play infront of someone.

Actually coming back to the thread to share my own experience... is that I haven't played guitar for around the past 10 years, since I started college. I still have all my gear, and just this week I picked it back up, and it felt so good to play again. But most of my muscle memory and finger strenght is gone and I don't remember how to play most songs that I played back in the day. I spent most of my teenage years playing a couple hours a day, but now I feel like a beginner again. So, I'll say, try doing some exercises as warmups, then go practice the songs that you want to play. At least that's what I plan on doing.

Hey, so I think I’m fairly competent- always lots to learn but I’m happy to give you tips. Here’s my channel so you can see my style (self confessed slash fanboy)

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZebJjCpEddo?feature=share

Never did a scale or tutorial, always by ear like the “greats” because I was told learning any other way would impact me. Please let me know whatever questions you have and I’m happy to either answer here or do a video call!

I have a lot of videos up there so see if you want to move in that direction.

Thanks

Learn more songs. Learn songs you wouldn't normally learn. Learn songs that aren't meant to be played on guitar. A.B.C. -- Always. Be. Learningnewsongs.

I like finding songs that I like that make me exercise in ways that would normally be boring. For example, chromatic exercises are super boring, but I'm learning Mike Stern's Chromazone, and it makes technical practice fun.

I asked this same question to a local guitar legend and he told me “drink more beer.”

Follow JustinGuitar he'll make sure you know all the basic through intermediate things you should know, all for free. He will then point you towards some intermediate stuff you can explore that requires payment but you can go to YouTube for that if you want. He will set you up with enough basic guitar theory to self-study what you need next.

Most importantly, figure out what your goals are and plan accordingly.

Exercises, scales, rhythm, timing, practice, et al can definitely be holding you back. It might help to view those "building blocks" as aspects you can work on that limit your playing less. For me, practicing these things allows me to think LESS about scales, timing, etc by increasing my muscle memory and confidence, which allows me to focus on the music itself and get lost therein when I'm playing.

To use some ambiguous terms, you can hit every note "right", but that's a very small part of what make music "good"-- that's more about hips moving and heads bobbing.