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I suppose it all depends on where you came from more than where you are now. If you were able to get instruction when you were young but then got sidetracked you are in a different situation as an adult than one who had no early instruction and is starting late in life. Also, what are your priorities and your goals?
Since you can't change the past you must deal with the situation you're in now. I would have loved to have dedicated my life early on to painting but I cannot change it now. Although I started creating art very young and continued to draw and paint throughout my early life to some extent, I was already in my twenties before I even started my formal education in art and really took it seriously as a possible career.
When I look at artists who are in their early twenties that already have MBAs and a list of awards and famous commissions I could easily get discouraged and say, oh well, I missed my shot at becoming great. And in some ways it might be true.
If you are good at a young age and then get training early then you can worry about nothing but art. You are in a great position when you get to the point of having to earn a living to be able to earn it from your art. Since an artist starting out really needs to be unhindered by thoughts of paying bills and what the market is and how to sell this to make a living.
When you are starting out, even if you are very gifted, your early work will not be something you want to have hanging around later. Even if it is very good you do not start out selling at top rates.
If you want to have a better than average home, a nice car (or two), make sure your kids go to a good school, which often means living in a more expensive area with high property values and higher taxes to pay for those schools, it gets even harder.
Once, when in college, I figured out how much work I would need to sell and at what price to make just $20,000/year. In the area I live that is near poverty level for a family of 4. At the time I was thinking of illustration commissions and I took the average a starting illustrator might get per commission, then figured out how many I needed to do a year at that rate.
I soon figured I needed to get better than a starting rate to earn a living. It was very disheartening to learn also that the average salary for visual artists even some 20 years later in 1997 was still in that $20-30,000 range. And average for those with experience and who were established still was only in the high 30s.
These were the successful ones. The rest don't even make enough to cover the cost of their supplies in a year. So as an adult starting out, forget earning a living from your art.
Now if you can find a spouse who makes a good living and is willing to be the primary bread winner then you're all set. You can just work on your craft and if it sells, fine. If not, no big deal. You still have a roof over your head and your kids can get new clothes and the latest Nikes. Now, for a man this is unacceptable even today.
There are some, maybe even more than a few, women willing to support their husbands as they struggle with their art career. I do not think it is the norm for a woman to accept this role. Since we hear so much about the glass ceiling it might even be hard for a woman to earn a high enough salary to allow this, even if she was willing unless you were both ready to make sacrifices in order to live on a lower income.
It may be that I want a better than average home and income that causes me so much agonizing over money but, heck, what we do is much harder than what a plumber does and these guys want $80-100/hour to come and put in a bathroom. And all they need to know is hot's on the left, cold's on the right .... pay me 50% up front. (Just a joke guys. Don't hit me with your monkey wrenches.)
I can only speak for myself and my ego but I have a hard time not being able to earn my own way and if I have a family (which I do) I feel it is my job as the man to provide for them, not my wife's. So I have had to do many jobs (luckily most art related) to earn enough money that I could both support my family and be able to continue to work on my art.
Though it would be nice to drop it all and enroll in some atelier until my work rivaled Sargent's or Bouguereau's that is not a reality for most adult artists, man or woman. It takes a double income family to just get by in many cases these days.
What I am saying, besides alienating myself from every woman artist and plumber reading this post, is if you are young or still not tied down by a family to support, then go do it now while you still can.
It is almost impossible to focus on just improving and growing as an art student and also earn an income as a working artist since it really is two separate goals. If you are not in that position then do whatever it takes to continue your art even if it means slower progress. Slow progress is still better than no progress.
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