We tend to talk about resilience as grit. Push through. Power up. Hold the line. Or my favorite from the tech space, “Lean in.”
But elite performers know something quieter and truer: sometimes the bravest move is to pause. Not because you cannot handle the pressure, but because you can. Because you can tell the difference between productive strain and dangerous strain. Because you can listen to what your body and mind are saying before the consequences make the decision for you.
Two Olympic athletes offer a powerful case study in modern resilience:
- Simone Biles, who stepped back in Tokyo when her body and brain stopped syncing, then returned to the Olympic stage in Paris and won gold again.
- Alysa Liu, who walked away from figure skating as a teenager, reclaimed a life that felt like hers again, then returned on her own terms and just won Olympic gold in Milano Cortina.
Their stories are not identical, but they rhyme in all the ways that matter: they listened, they stepped away, they absorbed backlash, and they came back with a different kind of strength. The kind that is rooted. The kind that lasts.
The Moment You Know: When the Inner Alarm Goes Off
Simone Biles: “My mind & body are simply not in sync.”
In Tokyo, Biles experienced the “twisties,” a dangerous moment where a gymnast loses spatial awareness midair. She was direct about the risk and refused to perform at the cost of safety.
“For anyone saying I quit, I didn’t quit… my mind & body are simply not in sync,” she wrote, adding that it can be “dangerous… on a hard/competition surface.” This is one of the clearest examples of embodied wisdom on a global stage: she recognized that what looks like “toughness” from the outside could have been reckless from the inside. Here is what is easy to miss: She did not step away because she lacked discipline. She stepped away because she had it.
Alysa Liu: “Wow. This is what a break feels like.”
Liu’s turning point began earlier, during the pandemic, when rinks closed and she got an unexpected pause. “I was like, ‘Wow. This is what a break feels like.’ And then I was like, ‘I really like not skating,’” she told 60 Minutes.
That line carries a lot. Many high performers do not realize how depleted they are until they stop. When they finally exhale, the truth becomes impossible to ignore. She went even further, describing how complete her desire to disconnect became.
She said, “Honestly, I was hoping… the rinks wouldn’t open.” This is not laziness. This is a nervous system that has had enough.
The Backlash: When People Call Wisdom “Weakness”
When Biles stepped back in Tokyo, she faced harsh criticism from some commentators. In one widely reported example, Piers Morgan labeled her “selfish,” and other critics mocked her decision. She responded with dignity and a spine. Reflecting later, she wrote: “I’ve pushed through so much… the word quitter is not in my vocabulary.”
Liu’s backlash had a different flavor. People were stunned when she retired so young, and when she returned, even her coach initially tried to talk her out of it. She also faced the familiar scrutiny that shows up whenever an athlete refuses to fit the expected mold. Even her appearance was turned into commentary, with Reuters noting some media described her hair as resembling a “raccoon tail,” while she framed it as a symbol of growth.
Different sport, different narrative, same pressure: Be who we want you to be. Perform how we expect. Do not disrupt the story. Resilience here is not “ignoring critics.” It is staying anchored in reality while critics do what critics do. The comments section is full of folks that lack talent and fortitude.
How They Chose Rest Without Losing Themselves
1) They honored safety, not optics
Biles made the calculation plain: if she could not reliably orient her body midair, the risk was real. That’s a leadership move, too. Mature decision-making weighs consequences, not appearances.
2) They named what was true, even when it was unpopular
Biles did not hide behind vague language. Liu did not soften her truth to keep others comfortable. In the lead-up to Milan, Liu described the depth of her burnout:
“I really hated skating when I quit… I just wanted to… get away. I wanted nothing to do with that,” she said. That kind of honesty is not dramatic. It is clean. It is clarifying. It is how healing begins.
3) They rebuilt support systems that matched who they were becoming
Biles has repeatedly credited the mental and emotional work behind her comeback, including therapy. “I’m making sure I’m mentally well and I think you see that out on the competition floor,” she said in Paris.
Liu made her return conditional on autonomy and a healthier relationship with the sport. She described returning only if she could lead the process: choosing music, shaping the creative direction, adjusting training load, and protecting her body from harmful control. “No one’s gonna starve me or tell me what I can and can’t eat,” she said.
That is not just an act of rebellion (though I love her for it!). That is self-leadership.
The Other Side of Resilience: Knowing When It’s Time to Come Back
Rest is rarely the end of the story. Often it is the reset that makes the next chapter possible.
Simone Biles: “I took over a year off and THEN came back…”
A key detail in Biles’ return is that it was not immediate. She gave her system time. “I took over a year off and THEN came back… So I was petrified. But I’m fine. I’m twisting again,” she shared. That line holds the whole arc: time away, fear during return, and patient rebuilding.
In Paris, she reflected on how unlikely the comeback once felt: “Three years ago I never thought I’d set foot on a gymnastics floor again,” she told reporters. Then she proceeded to lead the U.S. team to gold and win the all-around title again.
Alysa Liu: “Hey, I think I want to go back to skating.”
Liu’s return also began quietly, not as a public declaration but as a personal experiment. Nearly two years after retiring, she laced up again. She told 60 Minutes: “I mean I wasn’t planning to return to competition… I just wanted quick hits of dopamine, basically.”
Then came the sentence that signals readiness: “And so I call up Phillip, and I tell him like, ‘Hey, I think I want to go back to skating.’”
Notice what is missing. There is no frantic urgency. Not proving to anyone that she’s still “got it.” Just a grounded desire, tested in small steps, until it became a real yes. And when she won Olympic gold this week, her words emphasized experience over performance:
“The way I felt out there was calm, happy and confident. I’ve been having fun,” she said. You can see that in the way she skates. You can see it in the way she authentically and lovingly supports other athletes on the podium. Liu is loving skating again and that love radiates from every cell in her body.
What “Better Than Ever” Really Means
For both athletes, the comeback was not just about medals. It was about relationships.
- Relationship with pressure
- Relationship with identity
- Relationship with their bodies
- Relationship with the story other people wanted them to live inside
Liu said after her win: “I think my story is more important than anything (results or medals).”
Earlier in the Games, she put language to what she was protecting this time around: “I know who I am as a person now. I have ideas and concepts that I want to share with the world,” she said.
This is the deeper definition of resilience: not bouncing back into the same system that broke you, but returning with new boundaries, new tools, and a clearer sense of self.
A Practical Framework: How to Recognize “Time to Step Back” vs. “Time to Return”
If you are a leader, a parent, a high performer, or simply a human with a lot on your plate, their stories translate. Here’s a grounded way to apply it.
Signs it may be time to step back (even briefly)
- Your body is giving repeated warning signals: sleep disruption, injuries, chronic tension, panic surges.
- You are losing basic coordination in your work: mistakes that feel uncharacteristic, mental “blanking,” inability to focus.
- Joy is not just low, it is absent. You feel dread where you used to feel purpose.
- You are staying in motion mainly to avoid disappointing people.
What stepping back can look like (it does not have to be dramatic)
- Reduce intensity without quitting: fewer commitments, narrower scope, protected recovery time.
- Name the truth to one safe person: coach, therapist, mentor, trusted colleague.
- Create a short “stabilization window” (2 to 6 weeks) where the goal is regulation, not results.
Pausing Without Self-Betrayal
What is equally striking in both stories is not just that they stepped back, but how they related to themselves while doing so. Neither Simone Biles nor Alysa Liu framed their pauses as personal defects. They did not publicly spiral into self-blame or collapse their identity around the decision. They named reality, made a choice aligned with safety and health, and held their ground. Biles was matter-of-fact about it. Her body and brain were not cooperating. That was the truth.
Liu was just as clear. She realized she did not want to skate and allowed herself to honor that without sugarcoating or self-attack. This absence of shame is not incidental. It is foundational.
Shame collapses discernment. It turns wise self-assessment into moral failure. It pressures people to either push past limits or justify themselves endlessly. Both athletes modeled a different internal posture: curiosity instead of condemnation. They treated their signals as information, not evidence of weakness. That orientation preserved their relationship with themselves. Because they did not abandon themselves when compassion was called for, returning to the sport later became possible. They were not coming back to prove they were worthy. They already knew that about themselves and were not concerned with proving it to anyone else. They were coming back because the desire was genuine again.
For many high performers, this is the quiet hinge point. You can step back and spend months narrating a story about how broken you are. Or you can step back and say, something in me needs care. One path drains future capacity. The other protects it. Resilience is not only about how much pressure you withstand. It is about whether you can tell the truth to yourself without turning against yourself in the process. It is about stepping away from what you are doing to be closer to who you are becoming.
Signs it may be time to return
- Your desire comes back before your ambition does.
- You can imagine doing the work with steadiness, not just willpower.
- Your boundaries feel clearer than before.
- You feel choice again. Not “I have to,” but “I want to.”
The comeback rule that protects you
Return should be incremental and feedback-based:
- Start small.
- Track your nervous system and recovery, not just output.
- Adjust quickly when signals change.
That is exactly what both Biles and Liu modeled: listening, recalibrating, then rebuilding skill and confidence over time.
A Closing Reframe: Rest as a Form of Integrity
There is a version of resilience that is performative. It is more aptly called relentlessness: powering through so no one questions your strength. Then there is a version of resilience that is integrated: telling the truth, choosing health, and returning from a place that is aligned. These high-performing athletes did not simply push past what was misaligned. They integrated the parts of themselves that had fallen out of coherence. That integration is alchemy. Biles and Liu did not just win gold. I believe they manifested it by summoning the disparate parts of themselves back into wholeness.
These women widened the definition of what strength looks like in public. They showed that rest can be a strategy, recovery can be a discipline, and boundaries can be a form of excellence. If you are in a season where your body or mind is asking for something different, you are not failing. You might be growing. You might be listening to a part of you that has been whispering a quiet but undeniable truth for a very long time. If you listen and heed the wisdom, the eventual rewards could be more amazing than you ever could have imagined.
Reflective questions
- What signal have I been minimizing that deserves my respect?
- If I trusted my inner wisdom fully, what would I change this month?
- What would a “better than ever” return look like for me, not for other people?