Three years ago, I was just like most beginners—day and night glued to the market. The result? My $10,000 capital shrank to only $3,000 in three months.

But now, it's different. With the same $10,000, I only made 4 trades in half a year, yet my account grew to $75,000.

This isn't luck; it's a lesson learned the hard way after three margin calls.

**Those devilish days**

I admit I was once a "trading addict." I’d wake up and check the market, see it before bed, even bring my phone to the bathroom to watch the K-line. A one-point move could get me hyped for hours, while a 0.5-point drop would scare me into cutting my position. Naively, I thought the more I traded, the faster I’d make money.

Reality slapped me hard.

After three months, 70% of my capital was gone, and I was a mess. Dark circles under my eyes were so bad that friends asked if I’d been pulling all-nighters at the internet cafe. My emotions were completely hijacked by the market, and my life was a mess.

When ETH suddenly liquidated in the middle of the night, I looked at my nearly zero account and suddenly understood a simple truth—cryptocurrency markets are not a marketplace; constantly trading just leads to losing all your capital.

**Three life-saving rules**

That night, I set three ironclad rules for myself, which later became the key to turning things around. I started only chasing opportunities with real structural potential, abandoning all temptations of micro-movements. I set strict stop-loss and take-profit levels, and once they were hit, I executed without hesitation—no emotional involvement in decisions. Before every trade, I asked myself three times: Is this really worth it?

Such simple changes transformed trading from gambling into disciplined execution.