Early Tuesday morning, Venus enters spontaneous and straightforward Aries, giving you a push to make your desires known directly, without overthinking it. This isn’t the time to play games, drop subtle hints, or hold back out of shyness. Just say what you want and go from there. Then a couple hours later, Jupiter retrograde ends. After moving backward since early October, the planet of luck and abundance is now back on track, and you can move forward with fresh clarity and confidence.

You’ve been mired in self-doubt lately — picking apart your flaws, scrutinizing your past choices, worrying that you’re on the wrong path and it might be too late to turn back. But as necessary as honest, unsparing reflection can be, there’s only so much you can take; the criticism needs to be balanced with compassion. This week, make a point of treating yourself with kindness. It’ll make daily life much more bearable, and you’ll find it easier to show care and generosity to everyone else in your life, too.

If you’ve been feeling overloaded lately, it could help to take a step back this week — to move away from the spotlight, turn down invitations, take a break from seeking out new opportunities. You might fear that you’ll lose momentum if you let up for even a moment, but it isn’t true. You aren’t resigning yourself to a dull future but simply taking a moment to regroup. Recharging your batteries now will make it easier to make the most of the big opportunities coming your way soon.

You recognize that all people have different communication styles, and not everyone feels comfortable being as open and effusive as you are. You try to be mindful of your friends’ unique needs and personalities, adjusting your own behavior so that they’ll be more comfortable. It’s a thoughtful gesture, but it can also put a strain on you. This week, stop trying so hard to deliver exactly what everyone else wants from you, and let yourself simply be you.

When your work starts to feel boring, it’s hard to stay motivated. And while there’s something to be said for staying disciplined through the tedium, that’s easier said than done; it’s only natural to lose focus when your day-to-day tasks are stale and uninteresting. Everyone deserves a little variety, so this week, focus on finding ways to make yours feel fresh again. Start a passion project, put different skills to use, take a risk on something completely new. You’ll feel rejuvenated, and the people around you could take notice, too.

You can sometimes come across as picky — really, though, you simply know what you like, and you see no point in wasting time on things you already know won’t satisfy you. And yet occasionally, you surprise yourself. Activities you expected to be boring could be invigorating when you give them a chance; people you wrote off as bland and annoying could turn out to possess hidden charms. Don’t try to force yourself to like something that’s not working for you — just stay open to being pleasantly surprised.

It’s much easier to be brave when you’re not doing it all alone. Sometimes, of course, you don’t have any choice — maybe no one is around to help, or the hard work just happens to fall on your shoulders. But more often, you can find people to lean on if you look. It’s important that you don’t expect yourself to be a hero this week. Seek out the moral support you need. The situations and people that might normally scare you won’t feel so intimidating when there are others by your side.

You know it’s important to stay open to constructive criticism. You’re not so arrogant that you think you have life all figured out — if you’re unwittingly making mistakes, you want to hear about it so that you can improve. The problem is that not all criticism is equally valid or helpful. This week, think about whose judgment you trust, and who you can count on to tell you the truth. When they have feedback, take it onboard, and give yourself permission to ignore all the noise.

In general, you’re not the sort of person to worry about impressing everyone around you. Your quiet confidence is virtually unshakeable; as long as you know that you’ve tried your hardest, others’ opinions hardly matter. But while you don’t rely on external validation, sometimes it’s still nice to have your hard work recognized. So this week, don’t hide your talents away where nobody else can see them: Let your best qualities shine.

You do your best to approach others with a generosity of spirit; you understand that everyone thinks and communicates differently, and you don’t let it bug you when people don’t meet your expectations. Sometimes, though, in your desire to be open-minded, you forget that your relationships should make you feel good about yourself. That doesn’t mean there won’t be conflict, but on balance, they should make your life better. If you’ve been accepting treatment you don’t deserve, this week could be the time to make a change.

When your important relationships feel unstable, it can seem necessary to avoid all discord. You worry that being straightforward about difficult emotions will only shake things up further, that sharing your fears will only make them come true. This week, though, a more direct approach might be the best way to reestablish stability and trust. Instead of dodging sensitive conversations, continually putting off the awkwardness until some future date, you might as well dive in now.

You’re bright and imaginative, constantly asking questions and coming up with bold new ideas. The trouble is that this gets lonely, sometimes — especially if the people around you seem content to accept the world as it is. You need friends with a creative spark to match your own. As you meet new people this week, keep an eye out for those who seem like they might be on your wavelength. Nobody will be exactly what you’re looking for, but all you need is someone to surprise and challenge you.

Without realizing you’re doing it, you often make relationships — of all kinds — more complicated than they need to be. Instead of taking other people’s actions at face value, you want to dig deeper; instead of just accepting your emotions, you want to know why you feel that way. And while there can be value in insisting on this kind of deep understanding, this week, give yourself permission to accept compassion when it arrives. When the people in your life show you care, when they demonstrate that they think you’re special, don’t question it, just let it in.

Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of January 26. The weekly horoscopes for the week of February 9 will be online next Sunday.

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