Lately, as I’ve been reflecting on 2025, both as an athlete and a person, I’ve been fascinated by grit and resilience: what they mean, how they differ, and how they show up in daily life.
Part of this reflection came from Lia Zneimer’s recent post on endurance vs. resilience (read it here). As someone who’s been called gritty, resilient, or both at different points in my career, I wanted and want to understand more deeply how these two ideas shape performance, recovery, and growth on and off the trail.
What Grit and Resilience Is and Isn’t
Psychologist Angela Duckworth defines grit as “passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” It’s the steady commitment to keep moving toward something that matters, not in bursts of intensity, but through seasons of effort.
As Stoffel et al. (2018) note, grit and resilience often overlap, but they’re not the same. Resilience is the ability to recover from challenge; grit is the choice to keep going despite challenge. If resilience is recovery, grit is persistence.
For me, grit has never come from external motivation. My grit is in being able to see the long path ahead and still step forward, knowing it will be tough. I’ve learned that what waits on the other side, and within the process itself, is the life I want and the best version of me. That awareness keeps me going when nothing else does.
Grit isn’t “push at all costs.” It’s sustainable endurance, the ability to stay in the work long enough to transform through it and build resilience.
What the Research Shows on The Science of Grit and Resilience
The science of grit keeps evolving, but much of what’s being published now mirrors what athletes have always known: grit isn’t born, it’s built through repetition, reflection, and recovery.
A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that athletes high in grit recover faster after failure or criticism, in other words, they’ve cultivated resilience. Grit doesn’t erase self-doubt, but it helps you move through it and rebound more effectively.
Research from Sportedu (2023) found that grit and mental toughness are separate but connected traits, together, they predict stronger resilience in sport. Grit fuels persistence; resilience shapes response and recovery under pressure.
A 2025 Frontiers in Sports & Active Living study showed that grit and resilience aren’t just traits for elite athletes. They predict long-term participation and performance for everyone from first-time marathoners to weekend adventurers.
And in a 2022 Taylor & Francis longitudinal study, researchers found that grit develops through consistent participation. The more time people spend in sport, through setbacks, restarts, and small wins, the more grit and resilience grow.
That rings true for me. One of the most important aspects of grit is learning to leave my ego behind. Because I’m gritty, I’ve failed more times than I can count. I’ve built grit by starting before I was ready, by chasing goals slightly beyond my reach, by shooting my shot when the odds were stacked against me. By letting go of the fear of being new, of looking foolish, of trying again, I’ve built resilience and the staying power to keep showing up.
When Drive Becomes Burnout
There’s a downside to grit and it could fill a whole other blog. A 2024 ScienceDirect study explored the relationship between grit and athlete burnout. It found that while grit can buffer stress and protect against performance slumps, when misapplied (when drive turns into compulsion), it fuels exhaustion and overtraining. The line between perseverance and depletion is razor thin.
The thing about grit is that it doesn’t mean no rest. In fact, I’d argue the opposite: to have longevity and staying power, rest and recovery are essential. As an athlete, this has been one of my hardest lessons, knowing when to pull back, when to skip another session, when to say no.
Early on, I used to think stopping meant weakness and that rest meant losing progress or momentum. Over time, I’ve learned the opposite: rest is part of the process. Without recovery, grit collapses into burnout.
Now, I see grit not as endless effort but as awareness with endurance. It’s the ability to push when it matters and pause when needed.
How to Cultivate Grit and Resilience
You don’t build grit by reading about it. You build it by practicing it, again and again. Here are a few ways to strengthen those muscles, on and off the trail:
Purpose > Motivation
Motivation will only take you so far — and it always fades. Purpose is what keeps you steady when motivation wavers. Duckworth defines grit as “passion and perseverance for long-term goals” — and that passion comes from meaning, not hype. Knowing your “why” gives you strength when it’s cold outside, when the alarm goes off before dawn, or when you walk into a room full of strangers.
Train in Friction
Growth doesn’t come from comfort; it comes from friction. A 2025 Frontiers in Psychology study on outdoor education found that people who regularly engaged in manageable physical discomfort (weather, fatigue, or failure) built higher levels of grit over time. Let yourself be uncomfortable. It’s okay to sweat, to wheeze, to get dropped by your run club on a Front Range climb. Every time you lean into discomfort instead of backing away, you teach your body and brain to adapt, that’s resilience in motion.
Reflect, Don’t Spiral
Reflection builds awareness; rumination builds walls. When you hit a setback, a bad race, a missed summit, a personal failure, use it as data, not as definition. Learn from it, adjust, and keep moving.
Community Builds Grit
Grit might be practiced alone, but it’s sustained by community. Surround yourself with people who normalize hard things, who fail and try again, who show up in the rain, who understand the language of effort. Training with other women athletes has done that for me, it brings accountability, laughter, and perspective.
Rest Is Part of Resilience
Rest isn’t weakness; it’s reinforcement. A strong recovery cycle gives your brain and body time to adapt and rebuild. After Kilimanjaro, I wanted to jump right back into training, but my body and brain had other plans. Recovery taught me patience and that stopping can be as intentional as pushing.
Why Grit and Resilience Matter Beyond Athletics
Grit is something I’ve had to build to give me the resilience to keep going in athletics and life. Every time I show up for a race, a run, or a tough training session when it’s cold, dark, or I’d rather stay home, I know I’m building something that goes far beyond the trailhead.
In that respect, the same discipline that keeps me steady in athletics shows up in every corner of my life in my work, my relationships, and my sense of purpose. Knowing I can push through the hardest miles or the longest climbs reminds me that I can do hard things anywhere. I know I have the resilience to bounce back, to navigate change and believe that this too shall pass. I can face midlife’s wild mix of change, fear, and possibility and keep moving toward the person I’m still becoming.
References
- Angela Duckworth (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
- Stoffel et al. (2018). Review of Grit and Resilience Literature within Health.
- Frontiers in Psychology (2024). Investigating the Effect of Grit Trait on Performance and Success in Sport.
- Sportedu (2023). The Relationship Between Athletes’ Grit, Mental Toughness, and Sport Resilience.
- Frontiers in Sports & Active Living (2025). The Relationship Between Grit, Resilience, and Physical Activity.
- Taylor & Francis (2022). Sport Participation and the Development of Grit.
- ScienceDirect (2024). An Examination of the Relationship Between Burnout and Grit in Athletes.