Tabs arent bad.  Just dont look at them blindly, try and understand the connections that are going on.  That helped me a lot and is still something that I continue to use.  I suggest sticking with lessons.  Some people say that lessons arent for them, but I think we can all agree that having some direction in your learning is a very positive thing.  I played for around 3 years just learning on my own from listening to music and playing tabs I looked up.  Then I took an intermediate blues class during the summer at the New York City Guitar School, and I swear I learned more and progressed further in those couple of weeks than if I had worked on my own for another year or two.  Just food for thought.

But like everyone said, play music you like.  Scales and theory and everything are great, but if you don't enjoy it and love it, its going to make learning a lot harder.  But when you play music you love, it never feels like work.