The first portfolio is not about picking well. It is about building something you will still be holding in two years, because almost every bad outcome for a beginner comes from abandoning the plan rather than from choosing the wrong asset.
Decide the horizon first. Money for five years or more can sit in equities; money for eighteen months should not. This single decision removes most of the anxiety later, because it tells you in advance which falls are irrelevant.
Then decide how much you can watch fall without acting. If a 30% drop would make you sell, then a portfolio that can drop 30% is the wrong portfolio for you, regardless of what its expected return is. Size the risk to the person, not to the spreadsheet.
Only then choose what goes in it, and start broad. A diversified base means the outcome depends on the market rather than on one company, which is the right way round while you are learning. Statman put the well-diversified threshold at 30 to 40 randomly chosen names, and the research since then has pushed that number up, not down.
Write down why you bought each thing and what would make you sell it. That note is worth more than any of the numbers, because in a bad month it is the only thing that distinguishes a decision from a reaction.
Then leave it alone on a schedule you set in advance. Review dates, not price alerts.
Educational material. Not investment advice.