Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. Finding happiness is one of the topics we've explored a lot on Nobody Told Me. And we'd like to share with you some of the most intriguing and useful information that our guests have given us about that.

And one of our favorite guests, Amherst College Psychology Professor Dr. Catherine Sanderson has studied how and why many aspects of our lives are greatly impacted by the way we think about ourselves.

Catherine is the author of the book, The Positive Shift, Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness,

Health, and Longevity. She talked with us about the importance of adopting a positive mindset,

which she admits didn't come easy to her. So a mindset is really the thought patterns we have about ourselves and about the world.

And we have lots of different mindsets.

So stereotypes that we hold are examples of mindset,

assumptions that we make about people based on their age or gender or ethnicity, et cetera, those are examples of

mindset.

How can we instantly change a negative thought pattern?

So I wish you were as simple as instant.

I like that option.

That would be great.

So it's not instant.

And it basically is like lots of different things that it requires practice. So there are people listening to this who probably automatically find the positive, and they may not even really understand your question.

Right.

Because positive just naturally comes to them.

That's just how you think.

But for people who don't do that naturally, it starts with getting aware of what your

negative thoughts are.

Wait, I'm having a negative thought.

What can I do about it?

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