If I Could Restart My Astrology Journey, I’d Change These 5 Things

So, I think of myself a smart woman. I was a good student — a Poli Sci major with a focus on political philosophy. I regularly read 500+ page tomes on things like surveillance capitalism, the cycles of history and what they mean for democracy, and massive biographies about brilliant dead people.

If I sound cocky, I was. Insufferably so. And I figured learning astrology would be as simple as learning things like, “Scorpios aren’t as complicated as they seem, and Aries and Leos should hook up but not get married.”

Imagine my surprise when my first order of “beginning astrology books” showed up — not a single one under 300 pages — and even more jarring, I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it. I read and read, studied and studied, and it still wasn’t clicking.

It finally did, but it’s been a hell of a humbling journey — and one I made a lot harder than it needed to be.

If I could go back and do it all over again, here’s how I’d approach learning astrology:

Decide Why You Want to Learn

This will help you figure out where to start — and just as importantly, what you can ignore for now.

• Trying to use astrology to help make life decisions? Start with transits.

• Interested in the nerdy academic side? Dig into the history.

• Just want to know why you feel like a badass but everyone treats you like a delicate flower? Focus on your Big 3 (Sun, Moon, Rising).

• Want to become an astrologer? Buckle up — you’re in for planets, signs, aspects, houses, asteroids, synastry, decans... and probably several identity crises.

Even if you’re all in, though, you should still...

Simplify Everything

I’m a broken record about this — I even devoted a whole page of this website to it. But seriously: baby steps.
I wish I had just memorized the zodiac signs and their meanings first.
Then the planets and their meanings.
Then the houses and their meanings.

In order.

Most sources throw everything at you at once and expect you to somehow absorb the relationships between signs, planets, houses, elements, modalities, aspects...

But until you actually know what they are, how they interact just becomes noise.

Skip the Beginner Books… at First

I can’t believe I’m even typing this (see above re: book nerd), but all of those highly recommended beginner astrology books? I wish I would have skipped them at first.

They honestly did more harm than good.

I would have been way better off starting with blogs, YouTube videos, and social media posts — because creators are forced to simplify when they only have 90 seconds or 500 words, or at most, a 30 minute video.

The shorter, real-world examples made it click: “Oh, so Capricorn Rising is a thing I should … oh so Mercury’s not the only planet that goes Retrograde, got it…”

Only once I grasped all the little individual concepts did those heavy books start to actually help.

In other words, I think most “beginning” books should really be labeled as “intermediate!”

Understand There’s No One “Right Way” to Do Astrology

I knew astrology was more art than science.

What I didn’t realize was how many different ways there were to approach it — to the point that the more you learn, the more contradictory it all seems. For example

• Some astrologers insist planets are the most important part of a chart.

• Others say houses matter more.

• Pretty much everyone agrees that pop astrology’s obsession with zodiac signs is a little misplaced.

And once you get deeper into it, you’ll run into debates about house systems, chart rulers, the relevance of asteroids... it’s a lot.

Here’s what I wish someone told me early on:

If it feels like the experts are contradicting each other, they are. It’s not you. It’s them. And it’s okay. If brilliant physicists are allowed to have different opinions about the many-worlds theory, then brilliant astrologers are allowed to have different opinions about whether or not Chiron counts.

Roll with it. Take it all in. Let the confusion simmer.

One day — without warning — you’ll wake up and not only get it, you’ll have strong opinions about it. (And you’ll love it.)

Write Down What You Don’t Understand (Yet)

I wish I had kept a running list of all the astrology concepts that made me feel like an idiot.
Instead, I’d hit something like “semi-sextile” or “8th House synastry” and either panic-Google it (bad idea) or pretend it didn’t exist (good idea at the time... came back to bite me later).

If I had just jotted down “no idea what the IC is” or “what the hell is an asteroid doing in my chart?” in a notebook somewhere, it would have saved me so much mental energy.

Not everything clicks right away — and it’s not supposed to. But trust me when I say if you take one concept at a time, you’ll instinctively know when it’s time to take on one more concept from your “to be learned” list. And the way these concepts start to click together is truly addicting.

Final Thoughts

Start small. Stay curious. Expect to be confused.
And remember: You don’t have to learn it all at once to start getting something real out of it.