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How to identify areas for improvement

By this question I don't mean where I could have made better moves, but how I can generally improve my chess ability. I do analyse most of my games afterwards, but I cannot pinpoint exactly my area of improvement. For instance, the stockfish engine evaluation here on lichess is good for pointing out blunders (generally arising from some miscalculation or oversight I made)- but it doesn't point out any foundation mistakes in my chess understanding. Is there any methods you guys know of that helps you identify the root issue in your thinking process, rather than the problem that is identified at a superficial level (blunders, mistakes, innacuracies). I already do have some untouched resources (like eBooks, YouTube videos etc.), but don't know from where to start. Sorry for the long post, just want to make the most of the time I spend on chess...
At your level, you probably need a coach to help you.
Like hicetnuc said, a good coach is the best you can get. If you can't get a coach, you could get some books with instructive exercises. If you struggle in exercises with a certain theme, you can pinpoint which areas you need to work on.

An example of great books with exercises is Artur Yusupov's training course (www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/) and Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual (http://amazon.com/Dvoretskys-Analytical-Manual-Mark-Dvoretsky/dp/1936490749).
Another helpful way can be to look at move times. If you spend let us say 30 minutes on a move (OTB), the current position might be an area of improvement. Carlsen once said something like: "I once spent one hour and four minutes on a move, and it was a really terrible one."

Stronger players generally do not need to spend longer periods of time in certain positions due to the recogniton of patterns. So if you spend a lot of time in certain positions, this is most likely an area of weakness.

Best regards,

JKnight

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