How, as a beginner, could I almost bankrupt a €3600 account some time ago, leaving it with only €800?

The beginner's journey is difficult and a bit overwhelming, especially because trading relies heavily on your ability to control fear and emotions. A beginner likes easy money, and when they see an initial stroke of luck, they can become extremely overconfident, leading to excessive leverage and not managing risk properly. Why is excessive leverage extremely dangerous for a novice? Because they need to work on themselves; controlling emotions is key to success. How do we achieve this? By focusing on being profitable in the long term and not on a few trades, studying and constantly learning, because we actually believe we know everything, but the truth is that there is so much to learn.

Not following a strategic plan can be your worst enemy; set goals and manage risk properly using stop loss and take profit, ensuring that you do not move them with a hot head. Only risk the capital that you are comfortable losing and that does not affect your decision-making.

Why is this important? Because risking more capital than you can afford to lose leads you to make hasty decisions when the price moves against you; fear takes over you, and you do not let your plan unfold, closing with losses, and many times, after a few hours, you realize that you missed an opportunity because your strategy worked, but you felt frustrated and scared.

Have discipline and try to protect your capital; first protect, then earn, because to earn you must first protect.

You have probably heard all this many times before, but it is real, and it feels very hard, with feelings of guilt and wanting to turn back time, but that pain is what allows you to move forward much stronger and focused, analyzing and learning from your mistakes, because many times we do not learn until we feel it as our own, until our money hurts.