If you want to enjoy Forex Trading success, you need to avoid some common mistakes, most of them are psychological and you won't be aware of them until you lose some money.
That's quite sad to say but this is the reality. In my opinion, better 100$ than 10,000$.

Let me tell you a story: yesterday I've been trading on Forex. My goal was to come to the end of the day with about 150$ on my account, starting from a 100$ initial deposit.

A very fascinating goal, isn't it?

I've been following the EUR/USD exchange for a few days, I even did some operations with a demo account and gained a lot of money, about 4,000$ with a (fake) 50,000$ margin account.

First mistake I did that day.

Mistake: Don't overestimate your capabilities and your margin.

To gain 50$ investing 100$ would mean a 50% return in one day. 4,000$ on 50,000$ means 25% returns in 3 days. Quite overestimated my possibilities, isn't it?! A better goals would have been 25$ in one day, maybe two.

*** My advice ***
Don't try to get from the market more than the market could give you. Do some calculations before.

I logged on the trade platform (I'm not gonna tell you which one because it has some poor trading tools that could affect performances, feel free to ask me if you want further details), set up all the windows to suit my needs, a quick look to the graph and placed an order.

Mistake: Don't hurry.

During the previous days I checked graphs to "feel" how the market was going. This time, with real money, I didn't wait and placed an order. "How the market was going" ? Didn't know exactly, I hoped.

*** My advice ***
Don't hurry because you feel you could do real money, always wait for the right time as you've (probably) practiced on virtual trading.

I lost about 10$ during my first trade (guess why...). Not a good start, I thought.
So I tried again after a few minutes and gained some bucks. Wow, the first loss has been a unlucky shot, let's place more successful orders.

Double Mistake:
Don't place orders based on such feelings after a win
and
Don't be stubborn trying to fix a loss the faster you can just after it occurred.

I placed three orders, subsequently, to get rid of the initial loss. The up-trend was quite clear but not much powerful. Three little trades could have acted like the trend would be more powerful. Yes, that's true BUT ... if the trend reverts back, it acts like a big loss and nothing else.
Moreover, have you got enough margin buying power to cover all the losing positions ?! (we're going to talk about this in a short time)

*** My advice ***
Take your time after every successful trade, as well as after each loss. Each trade has no memory of the previous ones, whenever those have been successful or not. Your mind surely has memory, don't let it condition your future trading choices.

Time to go to lunch, I relax my mind and come back to office after a few time.

(end of the first chapter, read how the story goes on in Chapter Two)