First of all I want to congratulate you on following your dream of learning to play guitar. Playing guitar can provide a lifetime of pleasure and enjoyment.
Secondly, I would like to assure you that it is never too late to learn guitar! I started learning as a teenager then I broke a finger on my fretting hand and it grew back crooked so I abandoned my efforts to continue learning (gave up) - and sold my guitar.
Then I decided to give it another try after the age of 40 and taught myself to play - and now I play professionally. I will never be as good as some of the best guitarist in the world, but I can play well enough to provide enjoyment for myself and entertainment for others.
A good friend of mine started taking lessons after the age of 60 and in two years has become quite good at playing guitar. Trust me - age is not your problem at 24!
To address your difficulties in learning to play chords. If there are teachers in your area that give lessons, that would be your best approach. A teacher or instructor can show you exactly how to play each chord and tell you what you are doing wrong and how to correct it. You can't get that in an on-line lesson or on YouTube!
If there are no teachers or instructors in your area, you can find teachers who teach individualized lessons using Skype so they can see what you are doing wrong and help you correct it. It's the next best thing to in person lessons.
If you are unable to get personal instruction as mentioned above, try to find on-line lessons that show you exactly how to finger all of the different chords.
It is perfectly normal to find it difficult to contort your hands and fingers into the strange unnatural shapes needed to properly finger chords. It takes a great deal of practice using the proper technique. Every beginning guitar student has a difficult time learning to play chords. You must accept that it will take time and practice. Someone to show you the correct way to play them will shorten the learning curve tremendously.
Learn the basic chords for a given key one at a time until you can cleanly play each chord. Then practice changing between the chords.
For example, in Western music in the key of G major, the most commonly used chords will be G, C, D, Em and Am. Learning just the G, C and D chords will allow you to play thousands of songs in Western music (especially "Country Western music").
If could find a way to take only enough lessons to learn the correct way to play most of the common chords, you will have a great start. Once you learn to play a particular chord properly, then you can move on to learning the other chords one at a time and then learn the transitions between chords and build from there. You don't need a personal teacher as much for practicing the transitions after you learn the proper fingering and positioning to play the chords. Learning to play smooth transitions is mostly just repetition and practice.
It's not easy to learn to play chords. It takes dedication and a great deal of practice. While you are in the beginning stages of learning guitar, keep your practice sessions short but practice several times per day. A good schedule might be 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes right after lunch, and 30 minutes in the evening - depending on your personal time constraints.
Shorter sessions will give your finger and hand muscles time to rest before they get too tired - and slowly get used to the stress of the strange positions you must put your hands and fingers in to form chords. Shorter practice sessions will keep you from getting frustrated and burned out from too much practice. As you get more experience, you can increase the time you practice gradually.
Also - as you first begin to learn chords, you may not have the finger strength to press all the strings down on all the frets using proper form. To prevent yourself from using bad technique to be able to press certain strings down in certain chords, instead of gradually building the finger strength need to play them properly - read this
How to make strings easier to play for beginning guitar student
It does not matter how old you are. You can learn to play guitar! And you CAN teach yourself - although I recommend private instruction (lessons) at least to get you started. Just remember - it takes determination, dedication and practice, practice, practice. It will not happen overnight no matter what your age. Good luck and enjoy your journey.
