Although I am a fairly new Forex trader. I have been trading for a little over 6 months. I am also thinking about leaving my day job and trying to do Forex Full time, or at least 8am-12am EST.

When I first started, I was a naive and lost a lot of money. When I lost all that my money in a matter of a couple of weeks, I was devastated. So I put even more money it trying to get it back as fast as I lost it. Well I lost that money too. I felt like there had to be a secret that I just do not know about. Why did all the trades go against me. Some where profitable but not for too long. They would all reverse against me.

Then I remembered a quote from a book I was read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. In which he talked about the "secret". In the book ..."he started that first you most know what you want before you can find the secret to achieve it. Well all I wanted was my money back. I wanted all my money back. That’s all I wanted. My money!

I realized that a quick return of my money was not going to happen. What I wanted was steady growth with out losing much of money left over. So I did the math. I had lost 30k in total so this is what I would do. I developed a stable trading plan that involved not only MM, but profit management. This might sound weird. But I would limit my possible profits or pips as well.

I wanted to make my money back in at least a year. So...
$30,000 in a year = 52 week
$30,000/52 weeks = $576 a week.
Only I decided I only would trade for 5 days a week.
$576/5 = $155 dollars a day
$155= average a little more than just 16 pips a day
Using only 1 standard lot

And that is what I did. I put my technical tools in play, read up on fundamentals everyday. And waited and looked, for the perfect setup each day. All I needed was one trade a day for at least 16 pips. I concentrated, did my homework and it worked.

Keep strictly to only perfect setups and controlling my greed. I didnt just trade to trade. I was actually able to recoup all of my money I lost in a period of only 3 months and then some. After much practice I was able to see other perfect divergence setups that brought my game up. Well with of course increasing my lots on which I believed were very probable trades.

I learned alot about myself, and I hope this would help you. If you have an idea of how much you really need, the minimum that you need to survive in trading. And divide it up by how many days you will be trading. It will help you with steady growth. Well at least it did for me.

And since, trading Forex as a replacement for a steady income. I believe this is the key as a successful Full Time Forex Trader. A steady stable income.

I am currently in Iraq, deployed as a Civilian Contractor. And hopefully when I return back to the states, I will never have to work for another person or company again for the rest of my life. I wish you the best of luck in your trading.