Monday’s new moon in Capricorn is a perfect opportunity to set new intentions. The best goals right now are sensible — but not necessarily easy to achieve. Set your sights on the prospects that will require sustained effort. You have confidence and resolve on your side, so make the most of them. Then, on Thursday, Venus enters gentle and mystical Pisces. For the next month, you’re likely to be attracted to thoughtfulness and sensitivity in others. It’s a good time to remember that the most impressive, outwardly successful people aren’t necessarily the right ones for you, and that love doesn’t need to be dramatic to be deep and true.

It’s easy enough to stay hopeful if you ignore all the problems in the world. But when you actually pay attention, it can feel practically impossible to believe things will ever get better. This week, you’ll be able to see all the plights ahead with unusual clarity, but your challenge is to fight for the future you want anyway. You don’t need to feel optimistic, you only need to keep moving. As long as you refuse to give up, the life you want remains possible.

If you want to dramatically change your life, sometimes your best bet is to stay open to the unexpected. But that only works when exciting people and opportunities come your way naturally. This week, in order to find the kind of change you’re looking for, you may have to create it. That could mean taking a wild leap or finally carrying out a long-stalled plan. Either way, don’t wait around for interesting things to happen to you: Commit to making them happen yourself.

You get along well with the people in your life, but you do your best not to rely too much on any of them. You worry about being a burden; it seems safer to deal with your problems privately. But this week, you may find that this approach doesn’t actually protect your relationships — if anything, it makes it impossible to build genuine intimacy. It takes courage to show your vulnerabilities to others, but it’s worth it: You’ll become stronger, and your relationships will, too.

Sometimes, you need solitude to think clearly. When you’re surrounded by other people’s ideas and opinions, it can be hard to know what you really think; when you’re prioritizing your friends’ goals, it’s easy to neglect your own. But this week, make sure that you’re not isolating yourself too much. At a certain point, it’s hard to move forward without help. If you feel stuck or unsure of your next step, now is the time to ask someone you trust for advice.

It’s easy enough to realize you want to transform your life — it’s another matter entirely to figure out how. The most obvious changes probably won’t work for you: They’re a bad fit for your schedule or your personality, or they won’t actually bring you closer to what you want. This week, don’t set new goals just for the sake of it — and remember that recommitting to the path you’re already on can be just as meaningful as setting off in a new direction.

You’re filled with big ideas — but you sometimes keep them all to yourself, especially when you’re around new people. You worry that being too assertive will make you look like a show-off, that your self-assurance will cause you problems in the long run. But this week, don’t pretend to want less than you really do. Let your confidence shine through and people will be drawn to you, new opportunities will come your way, and unexpected doors will open.

Once you start paying attention to all the world’s injustices, it can seem difficult to think about anything else. From the major travesties to the everyday setbacks, it’s enough to feel like the deck is so stacked against you that there’s hardly any point in trying. But if you’ve felt deflated and discouraged, this week your fighting spirit might rebound. The world around you may not be fair, but you’ve got a strong support system around you and deep self-will. Let both help push you forward.

The harder people push you to change your mind, the more likely you are to dig in your heels. It hardly matters to you whether or not they’re right — it’s the principle of it all; you can’t stand being pushed around. This week, just make sure you’re not closing your mind to useful new insight. Be discerning — you don’t have to listen to just anyone with a loud voice and a strong opinion — but know that your life will improve if you commit to changing your mind when it’s truly called for.

Though your dreams might be boundless, your resources are limited. If you only had a little more money or a bit of extra time, you think, you could accomplish amazing things — but here in the real world, you’re scrambling just to get by. This week, try to stop thinking about what you could do if your circumstances were different, and instead think about what you can do right now, with everything as it is. You’re smart and talented; for now, just try to figure out how to work with what you already have.

Some people tend to play it safe, setting modest goals they can easily achieve, working toward things that are already well within reach. You, on the other hand, dream bigger than that. This week, it might seem that the people who chose easier paths are much closer to their goals than you are. Remember that it’s probably not because they’re smarter or more hardworking than you. Rather, it’s because you refused to settle for the path of least resistance: You chose instead to challenge yourself, and, if you keep at it, your courage could pay off.

It can feel like you’re constantly being told — whether by specific people or the culture at large — that you need to change virtually everything about yourself. Sometimes, it feels like everyone thinks you’re weird or like you take up too much space. But this week, you can refuse to accept all that. You have room to grow, just like everyone, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Nobody else gets to decide how you’re “supposed” to be.

Although you’re not necessarily averse to small talk, you prefer conversations that go deep. You want to learn about your friends’ suppressed desires and hidden fears; you want to know what they really think. This week, though, it might be difficult to get people to open up. Pushing and prying is likely only to make them clam up even more — so take a step back. Showing that you respect their privacy, and that you’ll be there for them whether or not they want to share, is the best way to foster the closeness you want.

Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of December 22nd. The weekly horoscopes for the week of January 5th will be online next Sunday.

Buy Claire Comstock-Gay’s book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, here.