Hey, out there, and welcome to the Smooth Stones podcast. I am Amy Watson and I am a mom of two babies in heaven and six babies on Earth.

And I am a certified life coach, and I am here to help you live a beautiful life after loss, even without all of your babies in your arms. And I know it might seem impossible. But I want to show you that you can do it. It is possible for you no matter what you’ve been through. I gotta tell you what I have going on really quickly, and then we will dive into today’s topic.

I have tomorrow a free class for anyone who is pregnant after loss, and it is all about how to bond with your baby during pregnancy after loss, because if you’ve been there, if you are there, If you’re thinking about it, you know that it can be really hard to bond with your baby when you’ve been through a loss because it’s just so scary.

I remember that time for me when I was going through my pregnancies after loss, but I have a lot of tools and a lot of experience that I’m gonna share with you so that you can learn how to bond with your baby without. Being afraid and also keeping your angel baby with you so you don’t feel like you’re leaving them behind.

It’s gonna be so good, and I. Can’t wait to talk to you. If you come live, you can bring your questions. There’ll be a q and a box. Uh, you won’t be on camera or anything. Come to that class. It’s gonna be amazing. To sign up, you just go to smooth stones coaching.com/p. Class or just go scroll down in the show notes.

I’ll have a link right there. Uh, you can sign up for that. It’s Friday morning. If you can’t make it Friday morning, just sign up anyways and I will send you the replay. Definitely if you’re pregnant after loss right now, you gotta. Get in that class, or if you have any friends who are, tell them about it.

The other thing I wanted to say was, Hey, if you are listening, will you take a few minutes and review the PO podcast? It just takes a second. If you don’t know how, you can honestly email me, amy@smoothstonescoaching.com. I’ll tell you. But really, you just click on the podcast and scroll down. There’s like, Purple stars if you’re in iTunes, and you can rate and review the podcast if you love it.

That would be a great gift that you could give back to review it and to help other angel moms know that this is a place that they could get the help that they need. As I came into 2021, you know, our last episode was how to Say Goodbye to 2020 with Love. Moving into 2021 and kind of thinking about goals, thinking about who I wanna be, you know, in my personal life and as a coach, I’ve just had a lot of time to ponder and think, and.

I wanted to share with you today some of the ways that I’ve learned that are so helpful in setting goals and actually keeping them. What usually happens with New Year’s resolutions is they don’t last very long because we set goals like, I’m gonna work out five days a week, and as soon as we miss a day, We’ve kind of already failed, right?

So we do this all the time. We set kind of goals that are action centered, action oriented, and we set goals of what we want to do. But what is missing is really, really important. And so I’m gonna read to you today a little bit from a book called Atomic Habits. I’m gonna summarize some of it, but some of it is just so good.

Um, I had to read it. All the credit goes to James Clear, who wrote this amazing book called Atomic Habits. I put the name in the show notes if you forget by the end. But let me tell you a few of the things that. James says, and before I do that, I should probably say, what? What is the goal here? Well, the name of this episode is, who do you want to Be?

That really is kind of a deep question, but it can also just be a question that we ask ourselves as we go into the new year, as we go into our goals and we’re deciding, you know, do I wanna exercise more? Do I want to eat better? Do I want to. Spend more time meditating or reading my scriptures or whatever it is.

Who do you want to be? So James says, true behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with the long-term changes.

Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are. The goal is not to read a book. The goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to learn an instrument. The goal is to become a musician. Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.

I love this idea. You know, this book is called Atomic Habits, and what he means by that is not big. You know, atomic bomb habits, it’s atomic as in the smallest part of the cell, just like the atoms that make up everything. These teeny tiny habits that are gonna change who you are. But the most important part of it is what is your identity?

If you right now think about your identity, how would you describe yourself? Some examples it has here in the book. Of identities that we kind of pick up and we believe about ourselves are, I’m just terrible with directions, or I’m not a morning person. I’m always late, or I’m, I’m not good with technology.

Right? We all have these things that we believe about ourselves and we believe positive things. We also have a lot of beliefs about our identities that might be considered really negative that that hold us. Back. So when we have those stories, just like I teach you guys all the time, those stories we have about ourselves are going to create our results.

Our thoughts always create our results because, When you just think about your past and you think, well, I’ve never been able to stick to a goal longer than three weeks, you’re probably not gonna stick to your goal. This can be a really good thing to be aware of because once we recognize that we have these thoughts that are holding us back, that’s when we’re gonna be able to change them.

And so that’s another thing that I always teach you guys, is first step is always awareness. What I want you to do now is think, who do I want to be this year after we’ve already kind of let go of 2020? We’ve shed some of the craziness that has been the beginning of this year. Who do you want to be moving forward?

And then what are the obstacles that you see in front of you? And that is what are these identities? What are these thoughts that you have about yourself when you think about moving forward and becoming. The person you want to be. If you’re grieving right now, sometimes we feel like the grief is a huge roadblock to getting where we want to be, and we can’t even envision a future where we become the person we want because the person we wanted to be was a mom who had all her babies.

That’s really not an option anymore. So now what do you do? Well, I’m gonna ask you that question now. What do you do? Do you think it’s possible for you to have what you want to become who you want to be, even when you don’t have all your babies in your arms? And that’s a really, really important question, and it’s one that we don’t think of a lot and we hear a lot of messages that say, Well, you just really can’t.

You can’t have everything you want because your baby died, and that’s where I’m a little bit different. I wanna tell you that you can have everything you want moving forward in your life, and you can become the person you want to become even without those babies with you physically in your arms. And I know we want them, right?

We want. We wish they would’ve lived, but they didn’t. And the reality is they’re not here and we are. And I believe that they are doing fine. They have stuff that they’re doing, they’re happy. They know what’s going on. They’re totally aware of us, and it’s just us down here on Earth. Just really feeling a little bit lost.

So let’s help you find some direction in this season coming up. Okay. Once you have decided who you want to be, and this could be any habit, like I said, it could be any of the kind of. Stereotypical, um, new Year’s resolution type of identities, or it could really be something deeper about you. Like what kind of person do you want to be?

Do you wanna be a person who’s calm under pressure? Do you wanna be a person who goes with the flow when life throws crazy things at you? Do you wanna be someone who’s more confident, who goes at life with a confidence that maybe you never have before? Think about the identity of the person you want to be, and something that can help with this is even think about a person you admire, or a person who has qualities that you admire and just kind of envision yourself.

Having some of those qualities as well. What we need to do then, once we’ve decided, is start doing the things that are going to get us there. So if you wanna be more organized, you gotta start with those tiny habits like, I’m gonna make my bed every day. Every time you do any of those things and you believe in yourself and who you’re becoming, you get to continue believing.

You are organized, that you are healthy, that you are a reader, that you are a journaler, that you are not a yeller anymore. So we keep doing these habits and James Clear says Each habit not only gets results, but also teaches you something far more important to trust yourself. You start to believe that you can actually accomplish these things.

New identities require new evidence. If you keep casting the same votes you’ve always cast, you’re, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always had. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change. That seems pretty obvious, but I think we all need to hear it. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.

So here is the simple two-step process. Decide the type of person you want to be and then prove it to yourself with small wins. And what this means is just what we talked about. So you’ve decided that. You are gonna be someone who heals fully from her losses, from her challenges, from the things that she’s been through and learns and grows from them.

You just decide that, and you name it and you say, maybe it’s even, I am a strong person. I am a resilient person. And then you gotta do the things that are going to continue building up evidence so that you can. Continue to believe it and truly embody that. But the first step, I want to be really clear, you can just decide.

You just get to decide who you want to be. You just get to decide what your future’s gonna look like, and you don’t need any evidence whatsoever. Who you want to be has nothing to do with who you’ve been in the past, and it has nothing to do. With what happens outside of you. Now, I know that all of us have been taught this, right?

It’s that same thing, like if you just believe I’m not good at math, you’re basing that on your past. You’re basing it on the things that you’ve believed up until now and the evidence you’ve built up up until now, right? But we know that. It’s not always true. I have a daughter who struggles and struggles and we have spent many a tearful night catching up on homework while she tells me she’s just not good at math.

Because she’s decided that, but once we sit down and do it, she actually is great at math, so she was totally wrong about that, but she’s created the experience that she had and the result of really procrastinating her homework because she’s just decided that math is really hard and she is not good at it.

Moving forward, if she wants to decide, actually I am good at math, she can do that, and then all she needs to do is con. Continue taking steps, like listening in class, watching extra YouTube videos, getting all her assignments done, like studying and believing and creating the results she wants, which is becoming someone who is good at math.

With kids, it’s easy to see, like, yes, just that, that shift, just deciding you’re good at math instead of telling yourself you’re not, is gonna make such a huge difference for her. And. And it’ll make such a huge difference for you. I really, really want you guys to take this concept and apply it even if you have the thought like, oh, I always hear these great ideas, and then I never do anything with them.

That’s not gonna be true today. Okay? Because I just want you to take a few minutes, again, atomic habit. Maybe the next time you’re driving somewhere, turn off the radio and. Think or if you have a few quiet minutes to journal. I know writing things down really, really helps, especially with goals. Just the act of writing it down, but decide who do I want to be?

What kind of person do I want to be? Create that identity goal, right? I am a reader. I am organized. I love my body and take good care of it. I take care of my mind. My mental health is so important to me. It’s my number one priority. And if that’s who you are, then what do you need to do? How would you act again, visualizing someone that you see doing the things that you want, or being the person that you want.

Someone who has integrity. How do they show up in any situation? ’cause the thing is, if you have integrity, It doesn’t really matter what happens around you. You know you’re gonna do the right thing. And that’s something I was taught in church a lot growing up. It’s like you’ve got to decide before the temptation comes.

You’ve gotta decide just once and be done with it. I’m never gonna steal. I’m never gonna cheat. Like I am not a cheater. And then it doesn’t even matter if your neighbor at school has their answers where you can see them, you’re just not gonna cheat. So decide ahead of time who you’re gonna be, even if you have no evidence of it.

And then let’s move forward and figure out what. As a person who embodies that identity, how do they live their life? What do they do that’s different than what you’re doing now? And I really want to again remind you, if we’re talking about grief now, I don’t know who’s listening. Some of you may have lost your baby yesterday.

Some of you may have been 10 years. That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you believe about yourself as a griever. Maybe this is a year where you really stop blaming yourself and you decide I’m a person who’s kind. I’m kind and forgiving to myself because we are so hard on ourselves. It’s the worst.

Maybe this is the year you decide that you forgive the people who you blame because you don’t wanna carry that burden anymore. Maybe this is a year you. Commit to really healing and really stepping back out of the shadow and the little bit of darkness, um, that grief can bring onto us and just say, you know what?

I’ve done the grief work. I’m ready to break out. I’m ready to take off that heavy backpack and live my life and know that it’s okay. It’s okay to live an amazing life and to have big goals and to do scary things because that’s the kind of person I wanna be. I want to be a person who lives her life.

Your baby dying doesn’t mean that you can’t do that. That’s what I chose. This year as my word of the Year, and it’s kind of my, it’s, I like the word I chose because it’s like an identity, but it’s also just really symbolic for me. I chose the word light this year because I wanna be a light for you. I wanna show you that you can integrate your grief and you can grow and you can heal, and you can forgive yourself and you can forgive other people.

And. You would have an awesome life. And I also chose the word light because I know that things can feel dark and light is just hope, right? Like a lighthouse. Or when you’re stumbling around and you just can’t see light just illuminates everything and clears everything up right? When it’s dark, it’s confusing.

It’s scary. It’s so many things. Once we shine a light, oh my goodness. Like everything just gets better. And the other meaning of light that I wanted to embody this year is the opposite of heavy. A lot of people describe 2020 as heavy and loss is heavy. It can be a huge burden knowing that it’s okay to take off that backpack, just stop carrying it, let their.

Your shoulders be light. I wanna help you do that. I wanna help lighten your load of whatever you’re carrying. That’s why I chose the word light, and I’m going to keep that as a theme this year and really try to embody it for you as a coach, because I want you to have that hope and I want you to know that there is that light at the end of the tunnel, and I don’t know how long you’ve been in the tunnel or what kind of tunnel it’s been for you.

For some people you might be really doing okay, but there’s just that little bit. That you need to let go of so you can fully come into the light after loss. And that’s what I want for you. That’s kind of my word of the year slash identity goal. I just wanna be a person who brings. Light. If there’s any way I can do that for you, you can email me anytime or reach out to me on Instagram.

I’m at Amy dot Smooth Stones Coaching. I love it when people dmm me ask questions. I put a lot of stuff on there so you guys can talk to me. I’m totally an open book. I’m here for you, so I wanna be that light for you. I want you to decide right now that you’re gonna maybe let. More light in to your life because it’s up to you.

You have way more control than you think. No matter what is happening around you, no matter what happens next, you are the one that’s gonna open up and let that light in. I know you can do it, and I’m really excited to hear what you decide to become this year and who you want to be, and I hope you’ll come over and share it with me on Instagram.

If you are thinking, Amy, I want to believe this. I want to figure out who I wanna be. I’m just still really not sure, or I need some help. Get on a consult call with me. There’s a link in my bio. It’s 30 minutes. We just talk about what you have going on. I’ll tell you if I think coaching can help you and how it can help you.

Then if you feel like that’s the thing you wanna do, that you really do need a live coach to help you as you move along, we’ll just help you sign up for my program. It’s three months long. You would be amazed what you can do in three months when you really bet on yourself. And invest in yourself. I know people throw around these words life changing, but it is like, I’m not gonna lie, I love watching my clients when they come in, what they think is possible, and three months later it’s just totally different and it’s the most beautiful thing.

So if you’ve been feeling like that’s something you wanna do, please sign up for a consult call. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m really, really nice and I am, you know. I know we’re talking about grief, we’re talking about loss. We might be talking about heavy stuff, but like I’m a pretty fun person and I really love getting to talk to you.

Recap here, who do you want to be? Remember, we’re not trying to check boxes and say, these are the things I do, it’s this is who I am, and when you believe in who you are, you just keep doing the things over and over. Even when you fail or you miss a day, it’s fine because you already believe in yourself and who you are.

You don’t need any evidence from the past to believe that that’s who you are, and I really wanna challenge you with your. Life, like your regular life, I guess create an identity goal there. And then also with your grief in 2021 this year, what are you gonna do with your grief? Who do you wanna be as a griever?

And what results do you want to have? I’d love to help you figure any of this out. Don’t forget to sign up for a free class if you are pregnant after loss. Follow me on Instagram. I will talk to you next week.