In British government jobs, like teachers, doctors, local government employees and the Civil Service there has been an explosion of targets.
Every job, task, activity now seems to have a target to be met, a grade to reach. However, a strange thing that I'm becoming more and more aware of, is that sometimes these targets can actually get in the way of the job itself. People, especially very senior managers, with little or no experience or contact with the work itself, are so obsessed with meeting targets, making the grade, that the work suffers and things get worse instead of better. ( This is, unfortunately, not just an abstract thought. There has recently been an official inquiry into a hospital in South Staffordshire. On paper it was a great hospital, all targets met, in theory it was making the grade, getting full marks. HOWEVER, in reality, this hospital's breathless chasing of targets seems to have led to WORSE patient care, and it seems that a considerable number of patients there may actually have died as a result of this.
The moral of this story, (((( Broken Pen )))), is that you shouldn't judge yourself wholly by grades. If you feel a " calling " to be a writer I'd go for it. Honestly speaking, perhaps you won't ever make enough money writing to support yourself, but even if you have to do something else to support yourself as well as writing, I'd be tempted to follow your instincts. ( As for being " Nearly 30 years old ", I can sympathise with how you feel. However, I'm about half again your age, so I feel that I can say that I REALLY do believe that it's too early for either of us to give up on finding a " career-path " yet. )
It's not easy to miss a target, or not make a grade without feeling " knocked back ", but a missed target, not making a grade or getting a rejection slip DOESN'T define you as a person!!!!