Grit Is Being Steadfast In The Storm

Grit and mutual support helped us get through the pandemic together. We met six days a week, with up to 40 students, during approved training times set by oversight agencies. For many, it was one of the few, if not the only, social outlets during that time. Over those years, we logged around 5,000 daily temperatures, ran with masks, kept socially distanced in different groups, and stayed connected through running-focused activities. We were not allowed to cheer one another on loudly under the rules, give high fives, or follow many other daily rules that we did not fully understand.  Somehow, we kept morale up, and kids came back day after day, week after week. Our students truly demonstrated resilience and grit during a challenging chapter in history.

There is a word that shows up quietly in old dictionaries, in scripture that never uses the word itself, and in the quiet lives of ordinary people who refused to quit.

That word is grit.

Grit has reemerged in our culture as one of the strongest predictors of a person's success in life. Researchers have built entire careers studying it.

Angela Duckworth, the psychologist whose research popularized the term, defines grit as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Her studies have found it to be a more reliable predictor of achievement than talent or intelligence alone, across settings as different as military academies and national spelling competitions.

Unsurprisingly, grit shows up as a top predictor of success across every socio-economic, ethnic, and educational category researchers have studied.

Grit is the ability to endure, persevere, and remain steadfast in pursuit of a meaningful goal without giving up in the middle of the storm.

It produces stamina and a never-say-quit attitude, especially when a person has a clear reason behind the goal, a strong why that fuels the fight.

Grit is showing up day in and day out, regardless of the conditions. Consistency, stamina, endurance, and perseverance all describe pieces of it.

I once heard it said that grit means staying in your seat only when the mission-critical task is complete.

What Webster Says

Merriam-Webster currently defines grit, in part, as firmness of mind or spirit and unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.

Older editions of Webster's carried similar meanings: firmness of mind, invincible spirit, unyielding courage, and fortitude. The word itself is thought to have entered common use in the early nineteenth century, though sources vary on the exact origin.

You will not find the word grit in the pages of Scripture, but its meaning has existed since Biblical times. The modern word is simply new packaging for something old.

Steadfastness and endurance are the two words that best describe grit, and both have carried this meaning for centuries. If you want to go deeper on this, I have a short companion article on why steadfastness is so crucial to overcoming life's hardest challenges.

The Backbone of Grit

Faith is the backbone and fuel of grit, especially when lived out within a strong community.

Developing grit is tied to believing in and reaching the potential God placed in you.

We teach many life skills through our running, track, and field programs, but grit sits at the very top of that list. It matters in every part of life that follows: college, career, relationships, service, health, and everything in between.

To run your life's race well, grit is essential to reaching your God-given potential.

One Example of Grit in Action

Let me tell you about a group of students who taught me more about grit than any book ever could.

Before I tell the story, I need to give you some background on the culture at the time.

The pandemic was brutal on nearly every front of daily life. It was a massive adjustment for every person, in every home, and I will never discount or minimize what people felt during that season.

For some, it was a matter of life and death. I lost my father during the COVID period, not from the virus itself, but the restrictions surrounding his death added their own weight to our grief.

My wife and I could not sit with him in his final days. We stood outside his window with a cell phone so he could hear our voices as he was dying.

We had restrictions on who could attend his funeral and how we could gather afterward to celebrate his life. I gave his eulogy, carrying both the ordinary sorrow of losing a parent and the added sorrow of not being able to grieve in the way our hearts needed to.

Nearly everyone carried some version of that same weight. I will not judge or minimize anyone's pain from that time.

In the middle of all that loss, something unexpected happened while running.

Running and exercise took on new meaning during the pandemic. It became one of the few outlets people had for their mental health, regardless of their personal reasons for lacing up.

You saw more runners and walkers on the roads than ever, because it was one of the only things you could still do outside, within the rules. I had written beginner running programs on my blog years earlier, and I later learned that many first-time runners turned to those very programs to cope during that season.

For the students in our program, running outside became one of the only social outlets they had left. Our small school saw roughly forty percent of its students join us at different points.

Over the full course of the pandemic, we took about 5,000 daily temperature readings between practices and the school day. We met six days a week in small, socially distanced pods, wearing masks, and answering health questions before every session.

Here is what made it remarkable. There were no state championships. No big races on the horizon. None of the usual incentives make showing up easier when the alarm goes off in the dark.

There were no high fives. No loud cheering, the rules did not allow it. We could not even sing "Happy Birthday" out loud for a teammate's birthday.

And still, the kids came back.

Day after day. Week after week. With no crowd watching, no medal waiting, no name in the paper, and no state meet at the end of the season to make the sacrifice worth it in the world's eyes.

Think about that for a moment. These were teenagers, at an age when recognition and belonging matter more than almost anything, and they showed up anyway with none of it on offer.

No one was clapping. No one was posting about them. No one was going to remember most of those practices except the kids who were standing in the circle.

They showed up for each other instead.

They prayed for one another. Encouraged one another. Consoled one another when the isolation of that season got heavy. They vented in healthy ways in small groups because they needed a safe place to put the weight they were carrying.

They found quiet ways to celebrate one another when the loud ways were taken off the table. A note. A quiet word. A look that said I see you and I am glad you are here.

That is the purest form of grit I have ever witnessed. Not grit for a trophy. Not grit for a headline. Grit simply because the goal mattered, and because the people next to them mattered, even when nobody outside that circle was watching.

Their collective steadfastness, courage, endurance, and perseverance were the most awe-inspiring things I witnessed in fifteen seasons of coaching, and I have never forgotten them.

Words fall short of capturing what that group of students displayed. But I can tell you this: grit can live in a person's heart, soul, spirit, and mind regardless of the conditions surrounding them.

When grit is rooted in love, it tends to find a way through. It breathes new life into circumstances that looked like they had no way forward.

Grit is being steadfast, with endurance, backed by love and faith, for the sake of something greater, in the middle of a real storm.

Wrapping It Up

Be an example to the people watching you pursue something meaningful.

Give your goals everything you have, and give the people around you everything you have too, through service, encouragement, and love, especially in the middle of the storm.

Make grit part of your story, especially in seasons of change.

So the next time you're standing at the door, the rain is coming down, the wind is howling, and the warm bed is calling your name louder than your alarm did, remember what grit means.

Remember the kids who showed up for no reward but each other. Remember the people who lived this before you, in far harder storms than the one you are facing today.

You are not just going out for a run, or lining up for a race that feels small in the moment.

You are building something in yourself that will hold you up long after this particular storm has passed, in ways you may not fully see yet.

Blessings,
Coach Weber
Philippians 4:13

Endnotes

1. Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (New York: Scribner, 2016).
2. Merriam-Webster, s.v. "grit," accessed July 2026, definition 4: firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.

Many girls and boys stuck together through thick and thin during the pandemic and returned to win team state championships, team podium spots, set PRs, and individual state championships. The grit  displayed and love for one another during good and challenging times will permanently reside deep in my heart.