THE POWER OF DECISION: 

LET YOUR YES BE YES

11

 
FITNESS FITNESS 

& & 

HEALTHY LIVINGHEALTHY LIVING

Mountain View News Saturday, September 6, 2025

UNLOCK YOUR LIFE


PUSH HARDER OR 

TRAIN SMARTER


Michele Silence, M.A. is a 37-year certified fitness 

professional who offers semi-private/virtual fitness 
classes. Contact Michele at michele@kid-fit.
com. Visit her Facebook page at: michelesfitness 
Visit her Facebook page at: michelesfitness.

For decades, the mantra in fitness was simple: push harder. 
Sweat, sore muscles, and long hours in the gym were seen 
as proof that you were working hard. But a new approach 
is taking over the fitness world: train smarter. This method 
isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right exercises, 
at the right time, and in the right way. And surprisingly, it 
can get you better results without leaving you exhausted.

If you grew up in gyms or on sports teams, you know the 
“push harder” mindset well. Coaches, trainers, and even social 
media fitness stars have long preached it: lift heavier, run 
faster, or add more reps.

The idea is simple: the more you push your body, the stronger 
and fitter you become. And there is some truth to it. 
Challenging your muscles, testing your endurance, and increasing 
your effort can help you grow stronger.

But there’s a downside. When you always push harder, your body doesn’t always have time to 
recover. Muscles can become sore, joints can hurt, and your energy can drop. Over time, this 
can lead to burnout or even injury. For people who are just starting out or who haven’t exercised 
in a while, the push-harder approach can be intimidating and frustrating.

Enter Train Smarter. “Train smarter” changes all that. It focuses on quality over quantity. Instead 
of trying to push your limits every day, you pay attention to your body, rest when needed, 
and choose exercises that give the most benefit for your effort.

Smarter training includes:

Targeted workouts: Exercises that work multiple muscle groups efficiently.

Rest and recovery: Scheduling rest days, foam rolling, or gentle stretching to help your body 
rebuild.

Monitoring intensity: Using heart rate or perceived effort to ensure you’re challenging yourself 
without overdoing it.

Form over reps: Perfecting the way you move rather than just trying to lift more or go faster.

In short, it’s not about spending hours at the gym or sweating nonstop. It’s about making every 
movement count.

But does it really work? Research shows that people who train smarter often see better long-
term results. Strength improves, endurance grows, and flexibility increase. All without constant 
exhaustion.

One reason is recovery. When your muscles have time to repair, they actually grow stronger. 
Pushing harder all the time can lead to tiny tears and fatigue that slow progress. Smart training 
balances effort with recovery so your body can actually get stronger, not just tired.

Another reason is focus. When you train smarter, you pay attention to your form and technique. 
Proper movement reduces the risk of injury and makes exercises more effective. Doing 
50 sloppy push-ups won’t help as much as 20 perfect ones.

Smart training isn’t just for professional athletes. It works for anyone.

Studies show that alternating high-intensity workouts with lighter recovery sessions can improve 
both strength and endurance. For example, research from the American College of 
Sports Medicine found that people who include rest days and vary exercise intensity build 
muscle more effectively than those who push themselves every day.

Plus, compound movements (exercises that engage multiple muscle groups at once, like squats, 
lunges, and push-ups) are highly efficient. They allow you to work more muscles in less time, 
improve coordination, and burn more calories compared to isolated exercises.

Even small changes, like focusing on proper form, tracking your workouts, and scheduling rest, 
can reduce the risk of injury and make your fitness program more sustainable. Over time, these 
strategies lead to noticeable improvements in strength, flexibility, and overall fitness without 
exhausting your body.

You don’t need a gym or fancy equipment to train smarter. Here are a few tips you can try:

Start with form: Learn the correct way to do each exercise. Videos or a trainer can help.

Use rest wisely: Don’t skip rest days, they are when your body repairs and grows.

Mix it up: Alternate cardio, strength, and flexibility workouts to keep your body balanced.

Listen to your body: Soreness is normal, but sharp pain is a warning. Adjust intensity if needed.

Track progress: Write down reps, time, or distance to see improvements without overdoing it.

Fitness isn’t about pushing until you collapse. It’s about training smart. By paying attention to 
your body, focusing on proper movements, and giving yourself time to recover, you can achieve 
better results, feel stronger, and enjoy the process more.

The next time you do your exercise routine, ask yourself: “Am I pushing harder, or am I training 
smarter?” Smart training makes a difference. 

Have you ever caught yourself circling the same decision for 
days, weeks, maybe even months? You think you’re being careful, 
responsible, weighing all the options. But instead of gaining 
clarity, you end up more drained, more confused, and no closer 
to action. That’s the cost of indecision; it quietly siphons your 
energy, leaving you exhausted before you’ve even made a move.

In his classic book The Power of Decision, Raymond Charles 
Barker quotes Matthew 5:37: “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” At first glance, that 
might sound like advice from a parent or teacher. However, the truth is that indecision is 
not neutral. It’s a decision to stay stuck.

When you really pay attention in your decision-making, you’ll notice something interesting. 
There’s often a subtle pull inside you, an inner lean, toward either yes or no. Sometimes 
it shows up as relief at the thought of saying yes, or a knot in your stomach when 
you imagine saying no. That nudge is your wisdom speaking. The longer you ignore it, 
the more you pay in confusion, self-doubt, and lost momentum. Even worse, sometimes it 
manifests in the body as dis-ease. The ability and willingness to listen to your inner knower 
is an essential skill set, not to be ignored. It's a willingness to honor your inner truth.

Think about it this way: staying in the middle ground of “let me think about it” is like 
standing in the middle of the road. Not only is it uncomfortable, it’s also dangerous. Sooner 
or later, you’ll get knocked off balance by outside forces, other people’s opinions, deadlines, 
or circumstances beyond your control.

Energy loves structure and thrives with direction. The moment you make a choice, you 
free your energy to move forward. Even if your decision later needs adjusting, the act of 
deciding unclogs the stream. Progress starts flowing again.

Take everyday examples: the friend who keeps “thinking about” starting a business but 
never does. Or the person who spends years wavering about whether to stay in a relationship, 
neither fully in nor fully out. Both situations drain life-force, not because of the 
ultimate outcome, but because of the refusal to decide.

And remember: making a “wrong” decision isn’t the end of the world. It’s an opportunity 
to expand your perspective. Every move teaches you something. Either you win, or you 
learn. Both outcomes are good. Movement, even if it comes with mistakes, is always better 
than paralysis. Some of the most significant breakthroughs in science, art, and even 
personal life have come from what looked like failures at first glance. Mistakes don’t mean 
you’ve lost, they remind you that you’re alive, experimenting, and growing.

Decisions are powerful because they anchor you in the present. They say, “This is where I 
stand, this is what I choose.” And from that grounded place, new opportunities arise that 
never could have appeared while you were suspended in maybe-land.

So the next time you catch yourself circling, pause. Ask: Where is my energy leaning, toward 
yes or toward no? Trust that and lean into your heart’s desire. It doesn’t mean you’ll 
never course-correct, but it does mean you’ll reclaim the energy that indecision has been 
stealing.

Your life expands not when you think harder, but when you decide. Let your yes be yes. 
Let your no be no. And watch what happens when you step out of the middle and into the 
flow of your own clarity.

Lori is an award-winning transformational coach; she delights in watching her clients grow. 
Find out more at loriaharris.com 

Lori A. Harris

WHAT IS THAT SPACE OBJECT 
FLYING BY?

NASA is tracking a mysterious, fast-moving 
object entering our solar system, raising 
questions about whether it's just a comet — 
or possibly something more advanced.

The object, known as 3I-ATLAS, was discovered on July 1 by a telescope in Chile. It's the 
third interstellar object ever recorded entering our solar system, and is hurtling toward the 
sun at about 130,000 miles per hour, making it the fastest of its kind ever detected.

Scientists estimate its size could range from the length of Boston’s Ted Williams Tunnel, or 
1.6 miles, to as long as Manhattan's diameter, about 14 miles across.

"From images, we also saw that this object is active, which means that around the nucleus, 
there is some coma, which is an indication that this object is, in fact, a comet," explained 
NASA navigation engineer Davide Farnocchia.

But a Harvard University physicist believes there's more to the story.

A Hubble Space Telescope image captured in July shows a glow coming from the object 
in an unusual direction, said Dr. Abraham "Avi" Loeb, director of Harvard's Institute for 
Theory and Computation."It shows a glow ahead of the object, not behind it," he said. "If it 
were a standard comet, we would expect some dust to be shed off the surface of the object, 
and the dust will be pushed behind the object as a result of the solar radiation pressure."

Loeb has written about the object on his blog — even developing a probability scale to 
weigh the chances that it may not be a natural object.

"This object is unprecedented because of its inferred size, and its inferred trajectory, which 
is quite fine-tuned to be in the plane of the planets around the sun," he said.

For now, scientists are treating 3I-ATLAS as a comet. Its trajectory is expected stay away 
from Earth, passing by Jupiter, Mars and the sun before missing our planet by 170 million 
miles.Still, Loeb cautions that more observations are needed.

"As we get more data, when the sun puts more heat on this object, it might reveal its true 
nature," he said. "It could be a wakeup call for humanity if we realize that there is a smarter 
kid on our block."Currently, the object is near Jupiter. Researchers hope new telescope images 
will help determine what it is.

ALL THINGS by Jeff Brown


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