Personally, I disagree with @Mulberry, so this post is simply to give a contrary view. I have found that every working I did that seemed to be a failure was done under very unfortunate astrological conditions. Those that were successful were done under fortunate conditions, and if the resul was temporary or of only mean success, this was seen in the heavens as well. The same will be true for any practitioner if you can see when they performed the workings.
And the same is true for any action that can possibly be done, not only magick. The outcome of it can be seen by the time the endeavor was started, with traditional electional astrology.
Of course, seek after your own experience, and test things after great labour and experience.