You know the feeling. Your spirits are low and you’re feeling deflated, depleted and dissatisfied with the state of, well, absolutely everything. So you open your favourite magazine, or maybe open a favourite app with the swipe of your finger, in search of a little spiritual guidance from the celestial powers among us.

But what happens when those little tidbits of information just don’t seem to summarise your anguish at all? When maybe your star sign reading is so off-the-mark that you begin to distrust the astrological all together? Well, as much as we hate to be the bearers of bad news, the chances are that you’re not being personally victimised by your horoscope, but rather that you may just be making mistakes when reading it.

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Not all horoscopes were created equally after all, and in case you need a little bit of guidance in terms of how to read yours accurately and get the most out of it, we’ve rounded up these common mistakes that astrologers want you to stop making.

Don’t take the reading too seriously

Astrologer Inbaal Honigman is clear that a mistake she sees all too often is people taking their readings far too literally. ‘Astrology is not a science, but rather an art,’ she tells ELLE UK. ‘When predicting the month ahead, the astrologer may see a change of scenery for you, and will creatively suggest you may be moving house or even a change of premises at work.’

If, in the weeks following a reading, you haven’t moved house or you haven’t changed premises somewhere in your life, Honigman is clear that while you may be inclined to think that the horoscope was ‘wrong’, it might actually just indicate that the signs and planets are nodding towards something beginning to change in your world. Not everything will happen instantaneously.

‘Remedy this by reading your horoscope with an open mind, and adapting your reading to the terms that align with your life as you know it,’ she advises.

Don’t ignore your moon sign

‘One of the most transformative things that you can do for yourself is to find out your moon sign, as this tells you who you are on the inside, who you are when no-one else is watching and what you need to nourish, nurture and give to yourself to feel at your best in life,’ astrologer and author of The Goddess Path, Kirsty Gallagher, tells ELLE UK. ‘Discovering your moon sign often brings about a big sigh of relief, especially if you’ve always felt like a “bad” Virgo or Leo or Gemini or whatever you might be. It helps to give a deeper insight into who you truly are so that you can embrace more of yourself.’

‘One of the biggest mistakes I see in astrology is believing that you are just your star sign. We likely all know our star or zodiac sign and maybe look at horoscopes that give blanket statements about what will happen to us this week or what it means to be a picky perfectionist Virgo or a bold, confident Leo,’ she adds. ‘Although this can give clues to your identity and who you are, it’s only a small part of the picture that makes you you.’

Don’t just pay attention to your sun sign

‘What people often forget is that as human beings, we contain multitudes. We are living breathing contradictions and so are our natal charts. There is a lot more to us than just our sun signs,’ resident astrologer at Soulstice London, Audree Barvé, explains. ‘You have a sign for each planet and how they all interact with each other impacts each of us. It is impossible to get the full view if you are only looking at one aspect of yourself, which is essetnially just one piece of the puzzle. People need to remember that the interpretations of astrological placements are endless. There is not one way to be a Sagittarius, for example. We are not cookie cutters of our charts and we don’t exist in isolation, we are relational beings.’

Barvé explains that a person’s natal chart gives astrologers a snapshot of the sky at the time of their birth, which in turn informs the potential energies to explore. ‘We are then shaped by everyone and everything we come into contact with, resulting in a completely unique lived experience,’ she adds. ‘By just focussing on a sun sign horoscope, we flatten ourselves to one dimension, and by viewing natal charts in isolation and not taking into account a person’s environmental and real-life experience, we lose nuance and ultimately glaze over how extraordinarily one-of-a-kind every person is.’

Her advice to avoid making these mistakes? ‘Take information with a pinch of salt and always negotiate astrological input with your lived experience. It’s okay to not resonate with everything and to find your own unique relationship to placements in your natal chart.’

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