Asking for advice

If you're not enjoying it, maybe you don't want to do it? Is there something else that interests you more?

If SE really is what you want to do, see if you can think of some very small/achievable fun projects that you can apply to your personal life.

For example, A while back I noticed my wife was watching a Wifi enabled TV and I was curious to learn Go at the time. I searched for Go libraries on Github for the TV and made a terminal based remote control in about 30 minutes. It took her a while to figure out why it kept muting 😂 . That was really fun and taught me a little about Go at the time.

tl;dr, combine your coding skills with your other interests if you have some.

• Do you like gaming? Maybe modding, scripting could work for you.
• Gardening? How about building a plant monitor.
• Make a new website in a new framework or technology to show off your skills.

What kind of problems do you like to solve? Look there for intrinsic motivation.

I can try to say motivational things, but at the end of the day you have to be the one driving yourself, words can't always achieve that.

May I ask why you've had a two year gap? Were you focused on something else or did you have a bad experience at your prior job?

Speaking on my experience, what motivates me?

• It's a passion for me. Much like how professional sports players started at a young age, I was introduced to technology early. It's engrained in my DNA at this point.
• It's provided the lifestyle I desire. I busted my ass for many years with the mindset that it would pay off, and it did. I know my continued participation only enables a richer lifestyle in the long term.
• I have other long term goals in mind, like owning a lakehouse or living abroad during the cold winter months in Chicago.

Make developing a habit. Take a piece of tech, play and build with it.

Day by day, see your progress and that will give you the motivation.

If not, then SE is probs not for you.

Can you explain more?
What is mid-level experience for you and how does it relate to 1 and a half year? Also why would you quit your job because of Covid crisis? Especially as a developer you should not have had too much problems, I guess.
For your question, think yourself about, why you would want to continue with Software Development. Maybe you can write about your reasons for not being motivated for us. Maybe it is better to look for a similar or even different job instead, before you continue to invest too much energy into something, which you do not want to do as a job. But finally, most of us need to have a job to earn money and it is not completely about enjoyment, which is totally fine, in my opinion.

I had this problem before with uni. I took a semester off and by the end of it I was so bored that I started exploring some of the coding stuff that I always liked. I got back into classes the next semester stronger than before. Of course I was lucky enough to able to afford a gap semester. But when you start viewing what you love as a job then the motivation can definitely plummit. So try finding what originally got you interested.

Also one of the most important things for maintainining a strong interpersonal relationship is to do new things together. I like to think of hobbies and passions the same way. Try doing something new with your skills: learn a new language, make a game, hack your home devices, whatever excites you. I find doing new things can get me out of a rut if I have the time.

Put together a list of some cool pet projects or challenge yourself to build something. Eventually the fire and passion should return assuming it's still something that you want to do. Are you sure it's not just burnout because taking a break and focusing on something else could help.

If you are lacking motivation, have you asked yourself if you want to continue a career in development? I know a few people who quit their career as software developers to pursue other passions. It's not a bad thing to want to do something else, and it doesn't mean you have to stop developing.

But if you want to continue a career in development and are just having a difficult time finding motivation (happens to me as well), here are a few things I tend to do:

• Research bleeding edge technology, and see what peeks your interest, maybe writing a application will uproot some new ideas.
• Learn other languages that interest me (Rust for me currently), which in the past emulated the motivation I got from learning my first language
• Look for open-source projects that I can contribute to, as feeling part of a group/team helps a lot with motivation
• Read tech blogs (just like dev.to), seeing others talk about their projects/ideas can help you find original ideas which can spur motivation.
• Keep a log of your ideas, doesn't matter if you act on them right away or wait years. Having a reference of ideas will help a lot when you start to feel lost without direction.

These are just some of the things I do to spur motivation personally. I hope a least one these prove to be useful. Either way good luck on whatever path you choose!

You should like what you do. If you don't motivate yourself, it will be hard to motivate you by someone stranger from the Internet.

Why do you want to start again? What drains your motivation?