When You’re Ready, the Right Message Always Finds You

A friend of mine has been trying to get fitter for years. You know the story - the new gym kit, the motivational videos, the fancy equipment that ends up gathering dust. She’s got it all: a Peloton bike, a treadmill, even a dog that practically begs to be walked. And yet, motivation has always been slippery. Then, one day, something changed. The Most Unexpected Motivation Coach Her son, who’s in his mid-twenties, often brings his friends round before they head out for a night on the town. One evening, one of these lads - a polite, fit, twenty-year-old with the kind of energy that only youth and pre-drinks can provide - asked how she was doing. She admitted, half-laughing, that she wasn’t as motivated to exercise as she’d like to be. His response, she told me, wasn’t mocking or patronising. It was one of those rare moments where the right words land in exactly the right way. Whatever he said - whether it was his tone, his confidence, or some universal alignment of timing and truth - it hit her squarely between the ribs. And that was it. Switch flicked. She started taking her health seriously, and she hasn’t looked back. Her new commitment didn’t come from a fitness app or an Instagram reel. It came from an unexpected messenger who, for reasons beyond explanation, said something that reached her at precisely the moment she was ready to hear it. Sometimes, transformation arrives disguised as small talk. The Searcher’s Frequency There’s a lesson here that goes far beyond fitness. When you’re searching for something - whether it’s motivation, peace, direction, or purpose - you become like a receiver, tuned in and open to signals that might otherwise go unnoticed. You might find the insight you need in a book title that catches your eye, a random conversation at work, or even an email (like this one). But that signal only reaches you when you’re actively seeking. When your attention is focused on what you want, you’ll start to notice evidence of it everywhere. The opposite is equally true. Focus on what you want to avoid - fear, failure, rejection - and your mind will tune itself to pick up those signals instead. You’ll find proof of your worries wherever you look. The Power of Attention This isn’t mystical; it’s neurological. The brain has a filtering system called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It decides what information is important enough to reach your conscious awareness. Once you tell it what to look for, it will obediently start spotting it everywhere. That’s why when you buy a new car, you suddenly see that same model all over the road. It’s also why when you start believing that opportunities are everywhere, they start appearing more frequently. Your brain is doing its job - filtering in the useful, filtering out the irrelevant. Change begins the moment you stop scanning for problems and start scanning for possibilities. Your Signal Is Waiting If there’s something in your life that feels stuck - a goal that keeps slipping away or a habit that refuses to shift - try tuning your receiver differently. Ask yourself, not “Why can’t I do this?” but “What if I could?” Then start looking for evidence that supports that question. Because the message you need - the spark, the idea, the conversation that moves you forward - is probably already on its way. You just need to be tuned in when it arrives. by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai) https://www.peoplebuilding.co.uk/franchise