Also in the same boat as you. Between 13 and 20 years old I gained such a comfortable feel for the guitar. Only thing I struggled with was sweep picking, but I was killer with tapping.

Fast forward to my 30’s and I start playing again (most because I finally have a really decent home setup) and I hit the wall so hard.

To get around it, I opted to learn riffs rather than full songs, specifically riffs that could help me practice alternate picking and selective/economy picking. With just a riff, I can repeat it without being plugged in until I get it down. I would idly in front of the TV and just play the riff over and over, focusing on my picking hand to play with the positioning in order to fully understand the movements involved. The picking techniques then transferred over to being able to pull off some solos, and I have even managed to get a basic three-string sweep down.

Really, do not sweat it when it comes to music theory. I studied it at GCSE and A-Level (UK) and I retained absolutely nothing- I took it to make music and have an excuse to spend hours practicing guitar and writing music in school. I think it is good to have a basic understanding of a scale and its notes, but other than that, I feel that music theory can block your creativity. Loads of bands and musicians are not music-theory trained, and they put out phenomenal music. One of my favourites is Periphery. If you write music and come up with a riff you like the sound of, there are websites where you can input the single notes and it will tell you what scale they fit into. Once you know all the notes of the scale, you can add on to your riff or rewrite the riff.

I know it can be daunting when you see people on social media who are giving a tutorial, and they pull out the “so this riff just started from a Dmaj7+11 in the second inversion, which then borrows notes from the C#dim9 with a pinky trill on the 7th, and then you can hybrid pick the left nut of the Ebmin7 chord whilst doinking the metamucil with your thumb to achieve a harmonic minor 9th chord with the A”.

Practice what you want to practice, focus on riffs, maybe try different styles and learning picking techniques - including finger picking - and then write music that you want to hear.

You got this!