That's why it's so important to journal your readings. It's a learning process until you find how each card speaks to YOU. Over time, it will become easier.
And right now? You have to keep in mind the question, the spread you chose, the spread position, and the whole context of the reading. There's a pattern. A single cups card surrounded by eleven wands and swords has a different weight than in a balanced or predominantly cups reading. If there are more cards than one, you always interpret the whole picture. (Deborah Lipp's Tarot Interactions gives good advice on how to do that).
And in the whole picture, one aspect of the card you're looking at makes sense more than others. You may also find that like in Lenormand, the one card unfolds more than one aspect, depending on which "interaction" with other cards or which part of the question you look at.
It's an intuitive thing. I look at the card and the picture and forget the book meanings, and I wait until everything takes shape in my mind.
IMO, this process of ideas taking shape is like a creative process, like painting, and it's for me the main fun of tarot. First you see nothing, and then you see something...