I'm not sure if I can offer any solutions, but I can relate to this very well. A few scattered but thoughts, consider any (or none) that seem relevant to you:

I'm not sure if I can offer any solutions, but I can relate to this very well. A few scattered but thoughts, consider any (or none) that seem relevant to you: - I recently had some long conversations with coworkers who experience similar problems with motivation. I was especially surprised to hear it from one person, who--from an outsider's point of view--maintains an insanely high level of work ethic. His approach seems to boil down to having a top-down self-identification with his role and a bottom-up maintenance of good habits. So from one side he identifies as a professional who meets deadlines and is committed to doing good work. From the other side he tries not to work on the same task for too long, recognizes when he's starting to feel burned out, communicates it honestly to his manager and coworkers, and takes breaks to work on other more rewarding tasks, or just breaks from work altogether. His attitude reminded me a lot of the ideas in the book Atomic Habits, which is worth reading if you haven't already. - It's easy to underestimate how much a change in environment changes your perspective. When I'm in a depressed mood, everything looks the same and I can't imagine how things could be less "true" in the future. In a different mindset, the bad things are still true, but seem less relevant. All software jobs *are* roughly the same, but having different coworkers, solving different problems, even working in a different building can help trigger a change in perspective. - Do you have a good sense of what it is that *would* motivate you? Or what you want? Is there a particular part of the process of architecting software that you find satisfying? Or maybe a product or company whose mission aligns with your values? Personally, I'm most often stuck in this part. If nothing motivates you, it's likely more than work burnout and you might want to take some time to focus on your mental health. - If you know what you want but struggle to set goals and make steady progress towards achieving them, I think it comes down to discipline. I've found that for certain things, if I wait for motivation to strike I'll be waiting forever, and unhappy the entire time. Sometimes detaching a bit and forcing myself to do something triggers a little bit of dopamine that inspires more momentum.