Identifying a valid and sustainable blockchain project is a tedious process that cannot be achieved with a high success rate in the current state of the industry, which means you will have to choose it based on past experiences or from trusted sources (like if that really exists). While this is a starting point to filter out scam projects, I think that you need to validate in more depth the sources of information, monitor the investments made in them, the social channels, the team of founders and separate the hype from the utility. And that still might not be enough...
Investing in crypto with the pretense of having a high success rate is more of an illusion than a reality, so the first healthy premise would be to prepare yourself for failure and evaluate what impact that could have on you. Expect the worse and hope for the better, while having done your due diligence will allow you to mentally navigate the storms that might come during the project lifeline. At the same time, we should invest what we can afford to loose as well. I thought at some point during the bull run to take credit from the bank and buy crypto with it as probably I will be able to return it and get some profits as well. Now I realize how stupid that was and if the tides turn, like the bear market or the crypto winter we find ourselves in, that could really ruin someone.
In the process of picking a crypto project or another, we have to decide what kind of investor we are, long-term or if we want to make money in a short period of time like one year. It is important to analyze where we can buy based on available liquidities in order to ensure that we are able to invest what we intended to. Next, we need to figure out where we'll keep the crypto assets and learn a minimum of notions of security in order to feel comfortable enough with the industry practices.
Once the prerequisites are clear we can move to pick a crypto project and here is where the fun begins. Never invest in a crypto project after reading one article on it (as I did), as that usually turns into a bad decision. Maybe formulate a checklist, ask around crypto people what metrics are using, and don't rush into pushing the trigger on your investment. And even if a crypto project passes all your checks from the list, still prepare yourself mentally to expect the unexpected. This way you'll be able to keep your mental health and make sane decisions.