I am tempted to start a poll that asks the reverse:
How long did it take you to go from LIVE to DEMO?
I traded demo for 1-2 months, went live for about 3 months. Initially, I did OK, lost money, became profitable and then had a 15% draw-down in one night (poor knowledge, poor risk management, could not justify my trades). So I am back on demo for a month and am learning technical analysis through Forex Peace Army Military School and learning fundamental analysis and trade psychology from one of "FPA Shoulder's of Giant".
There is one phrase from Joe DiNapoli "Loss of opportunity is preferable to loss of capital". I won't go into live until I can demonstrate that I /am :
a) Consistently profitable (I will have losing trades, but overall profitable)
b) I have documentation (screen shots/short written SITREP) with defendable reasons for entering a trade (Fundamental, Technical, Emotional) and this goes for exiting a trade.
c) Have sufficiently deprogrammed myself from a purely scalping "get rich quick" mentality, but that I have the endurance to let some prolonged winning trades run and that I have defendable reasons for this. That is, trying to strike a balance.
But I agree, it is tempting, but patience will reap awards!