The 3-card tarot readings are practically limitless. Almost any question can be answered simply by drawing three cards from the deck.
In most cases, three cards are enough to get a clear understanding of what we need to know. There’s no need for an extended spread to address a question.
3-Card Tarot Readings
My Favorite Tarot Reading Method
As I’ve mentioned many times, the method that gives me the best results when doing a tarot reading is the 3-card spread, which I also use for myself. You can see this in this real reading I did for myself on a health issue.
In fact, in the “personalized question readings” I offer—whether it’s one question, three, five, or more—I always resolve the spread with three cards to answer the question. I might add a few extra cards, if needed, to get a more complete picture.
In my blog articles, I often mention that we need to focus the response. There’s no point in drawing 20 cards; that’ll only confuse things. We need “significant cards,” and in this case, three are more than enough to build a response from.
With the additional cards, which we can draw as needed, we’re going to complement the central axis that the three significant cards give us. These are the most important cards—the direct and visceral response from the tarot—and we will fine-tune and expand the picture with the other figures.
Here, I’ll leave some examples of questions and topics that can be answered with three cards, but honestly, what we can do with them is unlimited. Any issue, no matter the subject, can be resolved with three cards, and here’s a small guide on where you can apply these 3-card tarot readings.
Later, I’ll add a real-life reading, a spread from a client who requested one of my “one-question readings.” I’ll leave the entire spread here so you can see the importance of the three central cards I mentioned, as well as the complementary extra cards. Plus, you’ll get to see how Tiziana does a real tarot reading.
3-Card Tarot Readings
3-Card Ideas for General Questions
- Past / Present / Future
- The nature of the problem / The cause / The solution
- Current situation / Obstacle / Advice
- Situation / Action / Outcome
- Context of the situation / Where you need to focus / Outcome
- What I think about the situation / What I feel / What I do
Examples of Future-Related Questions
- Where you are now / What you aspire to / How to get there
- What you aspire to / What’s blocking you / How you can overcome this
- What will help you / What will hinder you / Your unrealized potential
Ideas for Questions to Understand the Past
- What can change / What can’t change / What you might not know
- What worked well / What didn’t work / Key lessons
3-Card Tarot Readings for Relationship Questions
- You / The other person / The relationship
- What you want from the relationship / What they want / Where the relationship is headed
- What brings you together / What pulls you apart / What needs attention
Examples of Questions for Decision-Making
- Strengths / Weaknesses / Advice
- Opportunities / Challenges / Outcome
- Option 1 / Option 2 / Option 3
- Option 1 / Option 2 / What you need to know to decide
- The solution / An alternative solution / How to choose
3-Card Tarot Readings for Self-Knowledge
- Mind / Body / Spirit
- Your conscious mind / Your subconscious mind / Your superconscious mind
- Material state / Emotional state / Spiritual state
- You / Your current path / Your potential
- Stop / Start / Continue
- What the Universe wants you to be / Personal qualities needed / Specific action required
Example of a REAL 3-Card Tarot Reading
Of course, I’ve changed the client’s name. We’ll call them “Maria” here, but the reading is completely real and is exactly as I sent it to them.
My readings are never short. As you can see here, I’ve written and responded extensively, even for just one question.
The additional cards I draw are never the same amount; sometimes I ask for more, sometimes less, depending on what comes up, and the picture that starts to form. Sometimes just a few cards give us a strong response, and other times we need to draw more to complete the answer.
So, the whole spread is important, but you can see how the 3 central significant cards are always the core of the reading. Everything revolves around them, and I could even have answered the query just with those three cards.
I draw more to provide a fuller answer, but for most situations in your lives, three cards will be enough to get an answer, guidance, or an idea of what you need to know.
It’s obvious that you’re not going to do a “Celtic Cross” spread for a specific, straightforward question, and I’m of the opinion that less is more. Drawing too many cards ends up confusing things…
You can draw 25 cards if you want, but always focus the main response around at least three cards, and build from there.
This is my method, and I’m not saying it’s the correct or perfect one, but it’s the one that works for me and has given me the best results throughout the years of reading tarot.
Take it as a suggestion, and of course, you’ll have your own method and will discover your own best way to read the cards and connect with the deck.
Tarot is a personal, unique, and non-transferable experience, and each person finds their own rhythm, their own path, and the right connection they need to read successfully.
The real reading for “Maria”
Alright, here’s the reading I did for “Maria,” whose question was the following:
“Your question: Would it be advisable to start preparing to launch my own business in parallel?”
Maria, who had a job, but wasn’t completely satisfied, wanted to know if they should start training and preparing to work on their own, to become independent, to no longer work for someone else but be their “own boss.” This is the response the cards and I gave them:
“Alright Maria, the explanation is going to be pretty simple because your cards are fantastic, beautiful… Just the presence of The Magician as the central card is already an answer… this card is so strong that we could almost skip the rest, as success and achievement are assured with it—at least as far as balancing these studies with your current job is concerned. The cards are giving you a favorable response. They’re saying yes, go ahead, everything will go well, and without a doubt, you’ll succeed. You’ll complete your studies and start your own path.
Regarding how this path will go, whether you’ll be able to work solely on your own or will still need a base job to support yourself, and what results you can expect with this activity… well… I asked for additional cards to explore this, and they’re favorable too, with some nuances, of course. But honestly, a lot still has to happen for us to see how things will turn out… The cards look good, but perhaps this is a question we’ll need to revisit when the time comes, when you finish these studies and launch what we’ll call for simplicity’s sake, ‘the project’—which is to study and then build your own brand and business, yes?
The project will go WELL, but let’s not celebrate just yet… The presence of The Magician, The Star, and all the cards on the right show a successful outcome, but on the left, we have cards that complicate things a bit, undoubtedly connected to the first central card we have, which is the Four of Swords.
That’s why I’ve divided things into two groups… on the left, we have the present and short-term, with more negative cards, and on the right, we have the mid-term future, with all positive cards.
The Four of Swords not only shows the present, where the project hasn’t even begun yet—it’s still in its early stages—but it also points to a bit of short-term future, where the project seems a little delayed or slightly complicated to start… This isn’t really a negative card. The pause and rest it suggests, this “not doing anything,” actually seem beneficial. It’s a pause to regain strength. It’s a way to use the downtime wisely because there’s nothing you can do to change things, speed up the process, or influence it in any way. No matter how much you insist, try, and push to move forward, you probably won’t succeed. This is an external force, in a way—a context or timing that doesn’t depend on you or the project itself. Things are stalled for many reasons that you can’t act on or change.
Using this time wisely seems important, as we see with The Hanged Man in the group on the left. It might be a good time to refine or improve things, to change things if needed… With The Hanged Man, it’s always about a voluntary pause to “turn things upside down” and see everything differently. It’s about finding new angles, perspectives, and analyzing things from places we normally wouldn’t see or even know needed changing.
This pause is productive, it bears fruit. Thinking and changing things creates something positive, represented by the blossoming branches from which the man hangs suspended. So, the forced pause of the Four of Swords should be used as a voluntary pause to revisit aspects of the project and improve it even more, balancing your official job and home responsibilities, which also weigh in here. When things get moving and you start your studies and personal endeavor, they’ll deliver the concrete and decisive results promised by The Magician.
The message is even clearer with The Eight of Pentacles. Use this time to perfect everything, to polish the idea, so that the sketch becomes a definitive plan. Naturally, this also relates to your studies. It’s a card about seeking excellence, about doing even better what you already do well. It’s a card of refining and improving, so I think the idea is clear—this shouldn’t be wasted time. No matter how stuck the project may seem at times, you should keep working on it with focus and dedication. Once you’re deep into it, give it your all, without a doubt.
The cards on the left might scare you a bit, but don’t worry. Both The Nine of Swords and The Tower are more positive in their reversed positions. If we consider the usual linear timeline interpretation, the cards on the left represent our progress from the past and present to the future, which would be the cards on the right. In this way, the reversed Nine of Swords means that your fears, anxieties, and the worry that your project might fail due to external complications or delays are unfounded. There’s no real problem with any of it, of course… The Nine of Swords is always about overthinking things, fearing too much, imagining worst-case scenarios, and getting overwhelmed over nothing. When reversed, this card shows clarity coming, the “end of the dark night,” and being able to calm down as daylight puts everything in its place and dispels your fears.
Okay, you’ll still have doubts and worries until you fully start the project, of course, but these will be mostly unfounded. They’ll pass, the anxiety and fears will fade away. Clarity will come, not only with the Nine of Swords but especially with The Star (which, by the way, brings clarity and light itself). You’ll start calming down as you see things taking shape, the project moving forward, and that it doesn’t seriously affect your job or personal life. Everything seems like it will flow naturally and successfully…
However, this idea of balance should be handled carefully. Of course, the project will change some things—your schedule, for example. You’ll be juggling many tasks and responsibilities, so it’s unrealistic to expect everything to go perfectly smoothly. There will be challenges, but these will just be “obstacles,” not “problems.”
The Tower is similar in that sense. It reflects your fears, those dark moments when it feels like everything might collapse, like the Tower itself. But these moments are behind you now. The Tower might also be suggesting something else… it’s a card about “breaking down walls,” figuratively speaking. Breaking down our defenses. It’s also about “opening our minds.” I think it could mean here, since teamwork and collaboration show up so strongly in this reading, that you might need to open up a little. Maybe you’re used to doing things your way, alone, making decisions on your own, and it’s hard for you to “open up” to accept other concepts, ideas, or modifications to your project or overall plan… Like how writers get upset when their book is adapted into a movie, and screenwriters cut or change the original work… Maybe you’ll have to make some concessions—like not finishing your studies in the time you originally planned or negotiating with your partner, or even with your job…
This could also be a glimpse into the future… Maybe you want to focus, for example, on aromatherapy, but perhaps you’ll need to add other things or make it a secondary priority. To make it profitable, you might need to focus more on something like “teenage cosmetics”… I don’t know, I’m just throwing out an example without any real knowledge of cosmetics, but just to illustrate the idea that The Tower suggests “opening” up our closed walls, lowering our ego a little, and being willing to change plans.
I don’t see this being an issue for you. With cards like The Magician and Temperance (and The Queen of Swords showing up in the lower cards too), I think you’re someone diplomatic and balanced. But just in case, The Tower is giving you a heads-up—don’t get too attached to your own idea. Be open. And I think even with The Page of Cups, now you can pour more creativity into your work, but above all, into these studies and this personal project. You’ll give the best of yourself—not because it’s expected of you or what others want, but because now you’ll be giving more and better because you feel it, because you’re very aligned, creatively and emotionally, with what you’re doing.
But the pause will end in a relatively short time. Things will get back on track. The Star is always a card of good news arriving. It’s also a “planetary” card, which tells us that those external forces that were negative will now turn favorable. The planets will align for your project and for you—you’re under the light of the good star, shining brightly again. So, this central duo of The Star and The Magician, along with the cards on the right, is absolutely favorable, Maria… You’re in the right place, with the right people, at the right time… The card of Temperance appearing on the right speaks to doing the right thing, with balance, with calm, without forcing things… This middle path of Temperance means balancing everything—your home, your current job, your studies. Don’t go all out with your studies while neglecting the rest. And you absolutely have the ability and the composure to manage that balance, which I’ll tell you, is not easy and not for everyone.
The Three of Pentacles is also a team card. It shows that things will work and move forward because of a group effort. This isn’t an individual thing. It’s not just about your effort, your ability, or your will to make this project succeed, even though I know you’ll do a great job. It’ll come together because of the combined efforts of everyone, all the right people. This likely involves your family, and particularly your partner. This is the “core team” that supports and helps the project move forward.
Even though things don’t depend on you right now—there may be delays or complications that cross your path, and you can’t speed anything up—this doesn’t mean the project should be put on hold. You need to stay connected with the necessary people, and things will move forward due to external forces, so to speak. But you also need to be part of the equation.
It’s possible that getting the project started—and of course, its entire development—will take effort, as indicated by The Two of Pentacles. There might be some modifications and concessions to make, as I mentioned before, which you’ve likely already considered and analyzed after “turning things upside down” with The Hanged Man and reviewing certain aspects… There’s this sense of juggling things in The Two of Pentacles, and undoubtedly, it’ll require effort and a lot of dedication, especially time. It’s a card of intense focus on the task, almost leaving everything else aside—your personal life, family, partner, your leisure time. That’s where you need to be careful, keeping control and maintaining that balanced attitude of Temperance and The Queen of Swords… No doubt, having a job, a family, and also studying is a lot! I feel like I’d need a day with 36 hours to manage all that and still keep things balanced! But The Two of Pentacles is always a positive card, because we see a serene expression on the juggler’s face. They know they can handle it. The coins won’t fall. They can manage the balancing act, and they’re confident and calm about it.
So, first we see a certain amount of work to get things going, but the project will come together relatively soon—we’re talking about months. Things will be back on track to move forward. Then, there’s also a significant evolution, and everything will run smoothly. The project will happen and come to fruition as The Magician promises with all its strength and meaning, and most likely, with the results you’ve anticipated or calculated, though the slight downside might be that it takes a bit longer than originally planned…
The Three of Pentacles again emphasizes how vital it is—the importance of teamwork for this project. It will succeed because of the collective effort. It’s not just you. It’s the support from your family, their understanding, the financial resources you’re investing, the collaborator who will help you bring it to life… In short, it’s the sum of the parts that make the whole. Everyone matters here, and from this premise, things will move forward and turn into the magnificent achievement The Magician suggests.
It won’t be an instant success. There will be waiting, dedication. The project might start soon, but it could take longer to complete—whether because life’s unpredictability causes some delays or, more likely, because new elements are added. The project may grow. You might have planned for two years of study, but then find that adding a third year or taking another master’s degree in a different area will give you better results, more knowledge that will be important when launching the business. Do you get what I mean? Sometimes, inevitably, we end up adding more things… Today, maybe focusing only on aromatherapy seems like the best idea, but later you might get excited or realize it’s necessary to master other fields, and that will lead to a more fulfilling future, a better result, and more chances of success when launching your brand or product…
And certainly, we can sense a bit of that “success” in the celebration and joy of The Four of Wands suggests. It gives us this idea of solid accomplishment, lasting achievement, and job stability. Your project doesn’t seem to be threatened by anything, Maria, and there’s even potential for further growth and expansion with The Two of Wands, bringing new challenges, tasks, projects, and horizons—literally.
The Two of Wands shows how new things are added to the initial study project, but it could also mean new projects in the future. From this new independent work, maybe you’ll attract new clients who discover your brand or service… It’s an expansion of horizons, long-term new projects.
The Four of Wands can also be seen as representing the future. We’ve already mentioned celebration and joy, but I think here it reinforces the idea of family support. We can link it to The Three of Pentacles and the teamwork it suggests. I think this is a card that should reassure you that everything at home will be fine. This project and these studies won’t disrupt your family life. That concern you have, that the cost of your future career will affect your private, personal, or emotional life, should be eased by this card—it won’t happen. It won’t be easy to balance everything while you’re studying, and possibly later when you’re working on your own, but it won’t harm your home.
I mention that balance will be tricky when you’re working for yourself because being self-employed isn’t easy, and it’s not for everyone… I’ve been self-employed for many years, and I enjoy it, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. Sure, all the rewards are yours, but so are all the obligations and all the problems. It’s different from having a job where you get a salary. You know that on Friday you go home, and maybe you won’t even think about work until Monday… When you work for yourself, it requires more dedication. You probably enjoy it more too, and there are benefits—like if you have a headache today and don’t feel like working, or you want to sleep in until 10 AM tomorrow, you can do that with self-employment. But you’re also aware that you don’t have a guaranteed paycheck waiting for you every month, and your vacations aren’t paid… In short, I believe that when you work for yourself, you actually end up working more than when you have a regular salary, but it also brings much more satisfaction.
In the cards I drew at the bottom to get a glimpse of the future—after you’ve studied, earned your qualifications, and finally started your own business—the panorama looks positive, of course. I wouldn’t say it’s extremely positive; I don’t see you becoming a millionaire or anything like that, not exactly Coco Chanel, so to speak. But it does look favorable and profitable, for sure.
I should also mention that there’s still a long way to go, and we’re only taking a glimpse now, predicting a bit of the outcome, just to give you an idea of whether or not it’s worth the effort to carry out the project and study. If all the cards had been awful, maybe you’d decide not to study, or the reading would still be positive regarding studying, as you’d conclude from The Magician’s success. But then, in practice, in the field, the results could be different.
Here, the results look good and positive. It’s undeniable, with The Queen of Swords, that everything will depend on you. This queen is a fantastic card for business activities. She’s the most intelligent of the four queens, very rational, and she won’t make a false move. It’s very difficult to deceive her, and she always makes the right judgment on everything. It’s hard to imagine this queen making a mistake, so the cards already indicate that all the support and foundation of your business, work, and future rest firmly on you.
The Seven of Pentacles is, of course, a favorable card for money. Naturally, we’re seeing this far in advance, but we can say the progress will be slow. You’ll need patience, nurturing your work carefully. You won’t have instant success; you won’t hit it big with the first brand you launch. It’ll take time, and possibly with The Seven of Cups, you’ll need to tone down a bit… This card is always about fantasies and too many illusions, and we need to focus on just a couple of them. Of all those multiple cups offered, we need to leave some behind, temper our expectations a little, and ground things more in reality… The card isn’t negative, but it’s telling you that, for instance, if you’re dreaming of becoming the next Coco Chanel, you might have to lower that expectation a bit. But it doesn’t deny success by any means.
Then we have another Seven, the Seven of Wands, which naturally indicates competition. This is something we almost expect without thinking—nobody in the world considers work or money without expecting competition. We might succeed or not, but one thing’s for sure: there’ll be competition in whatever we do. Everything’s been invented already, and there are hundreds of people doing the same thing—cosmetics, tarot… Competition is everywhere, and we need to be there, holding our ground, step by step, as best we can. But it’s always a positive card—you’re going to stay standing. While you might not completely dominate the competition, you’ll avoid being knocked down.
The Wheel of Fortune is the last card, and it’s important because it also shows that, beyond the fact that it’s upright and always indicates a favorable position, a good cycle, a positive streak, and a good time for work, I think here it refers to external circumstances, which have already shown up in your project related to your studies. This is something we often overlook. We tend to focus only on ourselves and what we can do, forgetting to consider the external factors that sometimes have a significant impact—and often, they’re things we didn’t expect because we never even thought they’d happen…
You have a plan, you launch a business, and one day, out of the blue, a pandemic arrives, like the one we’ve just experienced, and it changes everything… Then you recover somewhat from the pandemic, you straighten things out, and without warning, a war breaks out. Due to geopolitics and global circumstances, you end up paying the price for something external that’s happening—and this is how we find ourselves today, for example, with inflation in Spain at levels we haven’t seen in 30 years…
All of this is to say that external factors are always a very important variable, and we need them on our side. Those unexpected events that occur—they’ll always happen—need to work in our favor… For example, people who made face masks or hand sanitizer before the pandemic found the pandemic favorable for them, right? Sometimes, a negative situation really hides an opportunity…
By all this, I mean you’ll also need the planets to align, for the external situation to be right, for it not to work against you… On one end, you are the foundation of the entire project as The Queen of Swords, but not everything depends on you. External factors also play a role, represented by The Wheel, and between these two variables, your business will operate…
Today, looking ahead with so much time still to go, we see a very favorable development. The Queen shows you have great expertise to lead things forward, and The Wheel of Fortune is upright, indicating good times ahead… Of course, we’ll see more about this later. We’ll check what the cards have to say about this in the future—whether they maintain this opinion or have something new to reveal.
In any case, dear Maria, this reading is a BIG YES for your parallel studies, and I wish you lots of luck and success, and may the greatest good happen for you… So be it!!
