what i do usually is place a sl when my trade is going my way!! no need to be too greedy, break even is another sort of profit, since its way better than loosing if it makes any sense 
If you want to earn from market its necessary to book profit, i usually withdraw some part of the profit i make, as in the long run you might loose the profit you have made , if you re invest it.
I am doing pretty much the same. I go in on the trade, at the best point I can see and I leave it to run until I reach about 20 pips, I then move the SL and wait. If it goes further another 10 or so I lock them in and so on and so on. I do not worry about the 20 pips from where the price is to where my SL is. I accept that this 20 I cannot get, consider it as your TP mark or something, cause I have already entered the trade accepting for a loss of no more than the 20pips so if you can lock in as you go then thats a bonus. It works for me that way and I am able to turn a profit on that system. Prices move constantly never 1 way only but this gives me the chance for a slight correction and possibly further profit side. I never close a trade, I let the SL hit first effectively being my TP.
Good Luck
Whenever you make a positive trade try to book a percentage of the profit, you have to take out the profit you make, as you might loose in the coming days.
I think you are having this problem because you donāt really know your trading system well and donāt know how it will perform in the long run. If you are using defined entry strategy and defined exit strategy for your trading system and your trading system based on your testing results is profitable, you would not have this issue about where to exit and where to place stop loss and take profit. If your testing results show that your trading system is more profitable if you do take-profit at 3R and you donāt move your stop loss, then you should stick with this exit plan. If your testing results show that your trading system is more profitable if you place your take-profit at the next major resistance level on daily timeframe and your stop loss at the previous support, then you should stick with this exit plan. It all depends on what your testing results show.
before entering the market, I usually plan the amount of profit and loss I can risk for that particular trade, maybe for a EUR/USD trade, I may plan on making a 15 pips profit, once the market reach that prize level, I lock out my profit.
It depends on how strong you think the trend/move may be. If you think it will carry on past your initial target, you could aim for larger profits while trailing your stop so you lock in a few pips along the way.
I have no target whatsoever. I simply trail my stop just above a given volatility range until it is broken, it is the purist action of letting profits run and cutting losses short I can think of. I often catch 3R and 4R trades doing that and I almost never take 1R losses, they are almost always less.
Putting up 15 and 20 pip stops and targets in currency pairs that ALWAYS have 3-day ranges in excess of 50 pips and usually have 3-day ranges in excess of 100 pips requires constant screen time and 10-20% fees. 10-20% fees alone can kill a traderās edge. Back out of those smaller time frames and trade the daily charts for hundreds of pips at a time and reduce your fees to 1% or less and your screen time to something you can live with.
Different trader have different technique in taking profit.
Generally people take profit based on:
- fixed calculation like 30 pips, 50 pips, or whatever based on their experience. Usually, a trading strategy comes with SL and TP settings so following it to the letter is good. Only modify such settings once you master the trading strategy.
- dynamic, by keeping in mind the most recent movement in the market. Take whatever the market can give.
- risk to reward ratio like 1:2, 1:3 or whatever based on experience. Some trading strategy are geared toward maximizing rr.
- based on bigger time frame. Enter on small time frame and then zoom out. The profit from this kind of TP setting is the highest in terms of pips. Some entry provides tight SL and huge TP so the potential rr is big.
Each of them is good because obviously there are people making money from them. Just choose whatever is comfortable for you because what works for other trader might not work for you (or even have negative impact). Eventually, choosing a method to take profit is a matter of compatibility issue not a preferential issue.
Hope it helps.