Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images
On Monday morning, Mars — still retrograde until late next month — moves backward from dramatic Leo into sensitive Cancer, where it’ll stay until April. You’re likely to avoid direct confrontations now. (Just be careful not to become so conflict-averse that you veer into passive-aggressiveness.) Then on Wednesday morning, Mercury enters ambitious Capricorn. From now until the end of the month, your communication style may become more authoritative and your thoughts more focused on practical matters — take care to leave some space for leisure and play, too.
You’re not fussy by nature, but this week you might be quick to find fault with other people. At work, everyone seems to be doing things in the least efficient way possible; at home, they keep disrupting your carefully constructed systems. Your challenge is to not take this personally. Don’t be afraid to tell someone when they’re causing problems for you — but at the same time, don’t assume that just because others do things differently than you would, they’re in the wrong.
Sometimes you feel stuck in your routines, but at other times, you’re filled with a sense of unlimited potential. Your imagination runs wild and suddenly everything seems possible. If anything is going to get in your way this week, it’ll be letting your energy pull you in too many directions at once. Trying to achieve all your goals simultaneously will only exhaust and discourage you; choosing one or two will help you maintain focus.
Everything in your life might seem especially urgent this week. It feels like there’s no time to waste — you need to make big moves now. But the more you rush, the less effective you’ll probably be, and the decisions you make in haste are likely to be the ones you end up regretting. Remember that the time you spend planning and reflecting isn’t wasted and that sometimes, the slow but steady route is actually the fastest one.
If you’ve felt underestimated or misunderstood lately, it’s easy to blame yourself. You should have expressed yourself more clearly, you think; you should have made it impossible for anyone to dismiss or ignore you. But this week, remember that you can only do so much. Try as you might, you can’t force anyone to see you the same way you see yourself, and in the attempt, you’re likely to make things worse. Focus on yourself, and trust that the people who matter most will understand.
Overall, your intuition is sharp, but nobody gets everything right all the time. This week, especially, it’s easy to get scrambled. You might ignore red flags in your attempt to see the best in everyone, or conversely, you could read too deeply into everything, seeing problems where none exist. Listen to your gut, but don’t rely solely on your own vague intuition. Pay attention to the hard evidence, and if you’re not sure about something, talk it over with the people you trust.
You have strong preferences about how things “should” be done and a robust ethical code you try to follow. You try to be understanding and easygoing — you know you can’t force anyone to agree with you — but this week it might be hard. You could feel a bit more combative than usual, ready to fight for what you believe in. Just do your best to pick your battles with care; there’s no point fighting about the small stuff with people who agree with you on everything that actually matters.
Self-promotion can feel uncomfortable, but you understand that it’s often necessary. As much as you wish other people would offer you praise without you having to say anything, sometimes the only way to get the credit you deserve is to step up and demand it. But at the same time, this week, remember that it isn’t your job to be constantly marketing yourself. For now, focus on doing the work you care about and doing it well — the time for worrying about recognition can come later.
You might be feeling frustrated and bored lately. Maybe your job seems tedious, or maybe your life overall seems uninteresting. This week, you might be tempted to throw away everything dull and set off suddenly on new adventures. But drastic changes aren’t likely to fix the problem — and might end up causing more trouble than they’re worth. Instead, focus on rediscovering excitement in your existing relationships and in your own neighborhood. If you sharpen your focus, you’ll find that everyday life isn’t as boring as you thought.
This week, you might look around and fixate on all the people who seem to have the things you want — fulfilling jobs, supportive communities, plenty of leisure time. It’s easy to get jealous, to imagine that everyone else’s happiness somehow comes at the expense of your own. But try to stave off your competitive instincts; viewing the people around you as your rivals will only stress you out and distract you. Instead, try operating under the assumption that there’s enough for everyone and that you can all get what you need.
You’ve met people who will take advantage of any kindness you show them, who won’t respect your boundaries unless you enforce them rigorously. Sometimes, you start to feel like you can’t give anybody the benefit of the doubt, that you have to be perpetually on the offense. But this week, try to ease off a bit. Remember that while some people don’t have your best interests at heart, plenty of others do, even if they express their love imperfectly; don’t wear yourself out fighting the people who care about you.
No matter how carefully you’ve planned out your schedule this week, or how important the tasks on your list are, it might be difficult to find the motivation to actually do what you said you would. It isn’t that you don’t care; it’s just that you’re tired. Try to make it easier by cutting out everything inessential — and don’t beat yourself up for doing less. While there are times when you can push yourself and grow in leaps and bounds, that can’t happen every day. For now, just do what you can and trust that it’s enough.
Most of the time, you’re excellent at picking up on other people’s moods. You can usually tell if something’s off, even if nobody says so, and you often know exactly how to lift your friends’ moods. Sometimes, though, paying such careful attention to other people means that you’re less attuned to your own emotions. So this week, focus on your needs. The more you’ve been neglecting yourself lately, the more you’ll benefit from a bit of extra self-compassion now.
Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of December 29th. The weekly horoscopes for the week of January 13th will be online next Sunday.
Buy Claire Comstock-Gay’s book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, here.