Man, I gotta tell you, for the longest time, my tarot practice was just crap. Not because the cards were wrong, but because the answers were so muddy. You hear all these ‘experts’ saying, ‘Just ask a better question!’ like that’s some magic phrase. It drove me absolutely insane because the advice was always so damn vague, and my readings were just poetry that meant nothing when the rent was due.
I started out like everyone. ‘Will I ever get rich?’ ‘Does my crush like me?’ Absolute garbage questions that only gave me those abstract, wishy-washy answers. I’d pull the cards and the result would be some vague crap about ‘potential’ and ‘pathways,’ leaving me even more confused than when I started. I swear, I wasted maybe six months pulling the same damn three-card spread trying to figure out if I should quit my side gig or not. The answers were all Justice and Temperance—balance and fairness. I didn’t need a lecture on cosmic harmony, I needed a cash-flow forecast.
The Half-Assed ‘Professional’ Phase
Then I moved onto the standard ‘pro’ tips I saw everywhere. I drew a hard line: no yes/no questions. Everything must be open-ended, focused on ‘energy’ and ‘feelings.’ So I switched tactics. Instead of asking ‘Should I quit?’ I’d ask, ‘What energy surrounds my current work situation?’ or ‘How would leaving this job impact my long-term goals?’
Better? Sure. I pulled the Ten of Swords and the Tower when I asked about my work stress. Brutal, right? It clearly confirmed I was miserable and needed to burn everything down. But here’s the kicker: it still felt passive. It was all observation, no action. The cards were telling me the house was on fire, but they weren’t handing me a bucket. It left me paralyzed, waiting for the universe to step in and solve my problem.
The Real Sht That Forced My Hand
This whole thing changed for me about a year ago when I got hit with a surprise that wasn’t subtle like The Moon. My work situation went sideways fast. I got blindsided on a major contract I was relying on. The client just walked, leaving me with a huge hole in my next three months’ income, the kind of hole that makes you look at your savings account and start sweating bullets. Vague potential was suddenly not an option. My ass was literally on the line, and the stakes were real.
I sat down with my deck that night, ready to panic. I started pulling the usual ‘What is the future of my business?’ stuff, hoping the High Priestess would whisper a magic word. That whole first evening, I wasted maybe thirty pulls. Just getting The World and the Star and thinking, ‘Oh, okay, potential and success are coming, I just need to wait.’ What a load of absolute BS. I wasn’t waiting; I was panicking. I realized that by asking passive questions, I was giving my power away to the cards. The cards were just mirroring my inaction, reflecting my desire to be rescued.
It took a full breakdown, literally sobbing in my home office, before I finally threw out all the books’ advice and got utterly selfish. I wrote down exactly what was going wrong, what I needed (a clear income path), and what I was going to do about it. That’s where the questions came from.
The Actionable Question Formula I Built
I began structuring questions based on specific, personal action points. I forced myself to use strong verbs about my control. This is the difference between asking for a weather report and asking for a to-do list based on the rain forecast.
-
I stopped saying: ‘What will be the outcome if I keep chasing this niche?’
I started asking: ‘What immediate steps should I take to pivot my services and stabilize my income over the next forty-five days?’ (It demanded a step.) -
I stopped saying: ‘How does this new prospective client feel about my proposal?’
I started asking: ‘How can I modify my pitch presentation—specifically focusing on language and tone—to foster a quicker commitment from the new client?’ (Focus on the me and the how.) -
I stopped saying: ‘When will my financial situation improve?’
I started asking: ‘Where am I currently resisting the opportunity for a profitable collaboration, and what action will release that block this week?’ (Resisting + action = clear card answer.)
I pulled cards on that contract crisis using these new, action-oriented questions. The cards showed me a clear path through organization and focused negotiation (a lot of Swords, Three of Pentacles, and the Eight of Pentacles, actually). I immediately took action. I identified and pitched three new clients, overhauled my service structure, and ramped up a specific, high-profit part of my business to cover the loss in three weeks. It actually worked, not because the cards told me what to do, but because they told me what action to take.
It’s not about being philosophical or fancy, folks. It’s about being so specific and so action-oriented that the cards can’t possibly give you some wishy-washy answer. When I forced the question to rely on an action I could take, the answer came through like a punch to the gut—clear, immediate, and actionable. My readings went from being frustrating, ambiguous poetry to being a damn, detailed to-do list. And that’s the only kind of reading I care about these days.
