How do you know if a reading you've done is right?

soot

You're aware that your wishes are influencing your interpretation, and it sounds like you can tell when it's happening, so you're doing great so far!

Even more striking, you can feel that it's "right" or is "off" and that's really, really good going while you're still quite a beginner.

Very similar but not identical. Hard to tell, but not impossible. Pay close attention every time, and you'll get more and more of a feel for which it is. Relate these subtle feelings to what's going on in the world and you will learn the language of your own personal gut feelings. After a bit you can start taking risks based on this (which is your intuition), little risks where the stakes are low, and saying or doing things with no "reason", and that's when you start learning really fast. :)

You will always misread some. No one gets 100% accuracy. I believe it tends to happen when the reader strays from her/his own way of reading - for me, that's when I think more than I listen to my intuition. Or sometimes I use a numbers-based method and then I need to stick to my rules for that.

Occasionally you just shouldn't be doing that particular reading and the cards simply won't tell you anything.

And if yes/no or any kind of question doesn't suit you, you can always state that you don't take that kind of question. The reader must set the rules and the boundaries.

Thank you for your encouragement, MandMaud. I'll certainly keep practising. I think you're right about setting the boundaries too, especially since I'm just starting. Better to focus on getting one thing right first before jumping to other things! šŸ˜
You could make a note of your readings and wait for them to play out then compare your reading to actuality, I've found that the best way to learn.
This is actually a great idea! Thanks for sharing. I'll to do a daily or weekly spread and record down how each reading feels and how things unfold by the end of the day/week. Hopefully over time I'll be able to tell šŸ˜Š
 

Maru

This is why I'm forever "trained" to my reversal method. As an intuitive, I use Rx as mean the meaning of the card is not yet fully channeled. If you upturn all cards (energetically/intuitively) speaking, then you've "unlocked" the true purpose/meaning/energy of the spread... you've brought it all out into the light as it should be... which I why think this is more important than the reading being "right". It should be "package delivered", "message heard" in my opinion.