Why “Should I” is a Terrible Way to Start to a Tarot Reading for Yourself
When you have clear goals and clear self-understanding, it’s easy to make decisions in alignment with where you are and where things are headed.
One of the worst words to start a tarot question is should. I know. It’s easy to fall into, especially if you’re using tarot to try to achieve specific goals in your life (yay you!).
I’ve done it. Hell, I still do it sometimes. Almost all tarot readers who ask specific questions probably have asked a should question at one point or another. And the truth is, even if we phrase questions in another way, many of us often really want to ask the should question. But I swear that the cards somehow know what we’re really hinting at. Even though I believe them to be inanimate objects (in my practice), they somehow still seem to know. It’s that whole setting your intentions thing.
Questions that start with Should often seem like exactly the kinds of questions you want the tarot to answer when you are trying to achieve a goal but you aren’t yet sure how to best go about it. But if you’re using tarot to transform your life and weave your own fates, these questions (and their alternatives) are probably the worst ones to ask the cards.
That’s because such questions are disempowering.
Questions that start with Should also give you the false sense that you are released from your own accountability and decision-making. And that’s why they’re such alluring questions. Truly, we often want someone else to make the hard choices for us. But in creating positive change in your life, you’re going to encounter a lot of those difficult decisions. And part of the magic of transformation comes as a result of making the choice. Whether the choice is “right" or “wrong” for your intended outcomes, the act of choosing and the thought process that allows you to decide (even if you end up just flipping a coin) is part of the transformative experience.
That’s not to say that there aren’t decisions that are more likely to get you to your intended outcome more quickly or cheaply or safely (or all of the above) than others. There are. And learning how to determine that for yourself is important work. It’s what I’m focusing on in the first month of my small-group coaching program, Tarot to Transform Your Life.
In this third and probably final personal story about my own transformations through tarot, I’m going to share some of my experience using the tarot to help me self-publish my first deck, the Life Line Tarot.
When I was doodling my way through the line art for Life Line Tarot, I knew at a certain point that I wanted to finish all of the cards and create an actual deck for myself. But would I create a version others could buy? Should I? Why shouldn’t I? These were initial questions I knew I would need to ask (in some form or another), but as I got more into the weeds, I found that I couldn’t always interpret the answers clearly because I didn’t have all the information. I needed to start asking more specific questions.
Whenever I want to ask a question that starts, “Should I…?” I know the cards are essentially going to say, “I don’t know. Should you?” It’s the same question I usually give my friends when they ask me if they should do something. Imagine a friend of yours asked you, “Should I take this new job?” or “Should I marry this person?” Do you give them a yes or no answer? For something that important? I mean, if it’s just “Should I wear this outfit to the party?” then for most outfits and most parties, whatever you choose is not going to get you into trouble. The cards (or your friend) may not be the right place to go for an answer, but it’s not going to get you in trouble.
And if you’re thinking, Oh, but my friend has really good fashion sense! They’re definitely the right person, then I want you to think about that statement. What is it that you’re actually looking for from them when asking that person the should question. You’re asking whether that’s the best fashion choice for this particular party. That might seem obvious, and your fashionista friend can probably infer what you really want to know (without having to realize it). But that’s different from asking your friend who not-so-secretly has a crush on you. You might different goals in learning the answer to that question. And those are both different from asking your very conservative grandparent whose idea of what’s appropriate for an outfit will probably guide you to choose something more formal and modest than you otherwise would.
With all of these, the words of the question might be the same, but because you know the personalities of the people, the intention behind them is different. When reading tarot for yourself, it’s just you. Even when you have a deck with “personality” that “reads” you, it’s still just you.
As I’ve already said, should questions are disempowering. But another problem with should questions is that they’re pretty thoughtless and lazy when you get down to it. You’re asking for the cards to make the decision because you’re not in the headspace to do it, and you haven’t been able (or wanted) to think through the different implications. If you were asking your friends and family that same question, what caveats would you put in place when hearing their answers? What follow-up questions would they ask you to help provide you with the advice that’s best for what you want to know? Those are the sorts of questions you should start asking.
But let me get back to my self-publishing of a commercially available Life Line Tarot.
After an initial round of simplistic should questions, I had to do some self-reflection and more earnest investigation. I had to ask myself and, after that, my cards specifics that would help me make a better decision based on the forecast that the cards could help me see.
What would printing decks for sale mean for me and for my business?
How would that work logistically?
What skills would I need to develop further to create the deck and then to sell the deck?
How much time would it take me to do?
What would that time and effort displace from my schedule?
Was I willing to lose those activities on this project?
For me, I knew that I could make it all work logistically and, in terms of production, I wanted a copy for myself, so I knew that was not really a factor. If I was going to create print-ready files for one deck, I would then also have print-ready files for 100 decks.
So one of the concerns I had was how many decks to print. Unlike services, such as tarot readings, that take time and energy, which can be easily redistributed, products require initial capital. If someone never buys a deck on my shelf, I don’t get the investment for that deck (the cost of producing, shipping, and storing it) back. It’s just gone. I can convert it into marketing by hosting a giveaway or sending out a sample copy or review copy. But the money is spent. And although I am more financially fortunate than most people in this country, I don’t have so much money that I am willing to just throw a ton of it away. (Does anyone ever feel that?)
It became important for me to think through the finances. Part of my desire to run a small business is to be financially successful as a business person and not a hobbyist. That’s my own dance with my shadows. I know it very well, and I know that it’s the thing that will consume me if I don’t plan for it.
So I had to know about the finances. What could I personally afford to lose if it all turned out terribly? What did I want to make in return for my labor? What did I need to recoup from the time and energy it would take to market, pack, and ship the decks? What did I expect to get from projects that I would have to shelve for another year because of the reallocated time and energy?
There were also practical non-financial questions too. Did I have the capacity to house stock? Would I be breaking my lease? Hell, would I be breaking my floor by piling up the weight of all those cards and boxes in one corner of my closet?
These were all important questions, and I didn’t need to go to the tarot to answer them. I had to go to me. After that, I could go to the tarot for useful information.
I knew that I had the financial cushion to print off some decks at my own expense, even if none sold. I could have gone with 50—that’s what a friend of mine had recently done with one of her decks. But with such a small print run, it would have cost about $20/deck to just break even—no compensation for the time and effort spent creating the art or the very time-consuming process of ordering the decks, making them available for purchase through various channels, packing them up, and shipping them out. Honestly, there is a shit ton of work required in selling products, and it requires a whole different business strategy. It also can be emotionally taxing, as the selling of Tarot Tableau in physical form had already taught me.
To make less than minimum wage on the time spent on them, I would’ve had to charge more than $40 per deck (and then I would have been paying taxes on that paltry minimum wage, so it would’ve been less). That would mean offering an overpriced creation that someone could easily bootleg and then undersell me on if it turned out to be popular. I had seen it done with other indie creators enough times before that I knew what I had to account for.
But the immediate revenue of the decks was not the only value that sold decks provide, and so it seemed reasonable to not get too caught up in the exact pricing yet. I wanted to be a deck creator. It was as simple as that. Call me egomaniacal, but if I had to pay for that, I was willing to do so. It mattered that much to me. And it might open more doors in the future, either in terms of professional development or in terms of actual partnerships. I also realized that I could always use the decks as a “loss leader” to generate other business or other opportunities if the cards didn’t find their market at a price I thought was appropriate. Financially, I could accept that. But emotionally? My baby! I couldn’t so coldly undervalue this new little thing I’d made and loved.
So that’s when I went to the cards. I knew that I could handle absorbing the cost of 100 decks if it all went belly up—that was what I was willing to lose to play the game. And I calculated that if I ordered 250 decks and sold at least 50 or so, then I could keep the cost reasonable, and I would also not lose more money than I was willing to lose. But beyond that, it was open season, and I had to think about what could be gained and what could be lost in ordering more.
From the tarot, I investigated what I could expect from different quantities and different pricing models. What challenges would they offer? What experiences did I want to explore? These are all beautiful questions for the tarot. Part of me wanted to ask should questions, and sometimes I actually asked a functionally similar question, “Is this a good idea?”
Because I had done my self-reflective homework ahead of time, I felt comfortable asking the cards the kinds of questions that I believe tarot is best equipped to help answer. Without that, I would have had some information but not actionable intelligence. I wouldn’t have been able to decide.
But because I knew who I was and who I wanted to be, and I knew the boundaries of what I was willing to accept and what pitfalls I would need to avoid—all things I’m focusing on in my coaching—I could get much more specific with the cards to iron out the remaining details through a few different forecasts. And from there, it was fairly easy to decide. Let me tell you: creating that first deck has absolutely changed my life for the better, both financially and professionally but also personally.
If you’re interested in applying for the Tarot to Transform Your Life small-group coaching program where you’ll have my guidance and a sacred container for your transformation, apply by 11:59PM (or thereabouts), March 19. This next session runs from March 23 into June, so the window will be closing very soon. If you miss it, you can sign up for the waitlist in my store, and I’ll email you when I have the next session scheduled.
In the meantime, you can start uncovering some of these deeper personal questions on your own through my Tarot Overload and Hermit’s Journey divination challenges.