Kedging: How Adventure Pulls You Through the Hard Seasons
Set a kedge anchor this summer. How scheduling adventures and creating from them helps teachers haul themselves through the hard seasons — and why this is survival, not luxury.
Teachers know this feeling.
It's February or May or that weird Tuesday in November when everything feels heavy. The grading pile is real. The emails never stop. The system is broken, and you're just trying to survive until the bell rings.
Most teacher wellness advice tells you to fix this by adding more — more self-care routines, more boundaries, more strategies layered onto an already full life.
But there's something older and smarter than that. Something borrowed from sailing.
The Practice of Kedging
When a sailing ship is in the doldrums — stuck in dead water with no wind — it can't just wait for conditions to improve. The crew does something deliberate: they row a small anchor called a kedge out ahead of the ship and drop it into deeper water. Then they haul the ship forward by pulling on the line attached to that anchor.
Kedging is how you move forward when circumstances won't cooperate.
It's not about forcing your way through. It's about setting your intention ahead of time and then pulling yourself toward it when the season gets heavy.
A few days ago, I did something small that turned into an example of exactly this.
Setting the Anchor (The Unboxing)
I ordered a GoPro for a specific reason: I wanted to build a practice around directing my attention.
There's an idea I keep coming back to — that where you direct your attention shapes your frame of mind. I borrowed this from Epictetus. In these last years of teaching, I've realized that I can either let my attention drift toward the system's problems, the endless grading, the things I can't control. Or I can deliberately direct it toward creation.
Creating videos. Documenting adventures. Sending a newsletter out each week. Building something that focuses my mind on what's good — what's working, what's beautiful, what's worth capturing.
That's not wasting my time on frivolous content. That's protecting my mental health through deliberate practice.
Here's the unboxing video from that moment:
I wasn't planning this series months ago. I wasn't waiting for the perfect time or the perfect conditions. I saw something I needed — a way to direct my attention, a practice that would keep me grounded. That's the STRONG Teacher way: not 100% different, just 1% more intentional.
The GoPro sat in my backpack for one day.
The next day, I was biking in a triathlon.
Hauling Toward It (The Triathlon)
I committed to the White Deer Triathlon — paddle, bike, run — as part of a team. I signed up weeks ago. I am not a racer, but I like to participate.
The triathlon was my kedge: the anchor I'd set out ahead of me, the thing I was committed to pulling myself toward even when life got busy or the school year got heavy.
Then, with the GoPro in hand and no experience using it, I showed up and did the biking leg.
Here's what that looked like:
The footage is raw. I was figuring out the camera as I went. There's no perfect narrative arc — just a teacher on a bike, trying to go somewhat fast, trying to capture something, trying to be present.
And that's the whole point.
Why Adventure Is Not a Luxury
Teachers will tell you: "I don't have time for adventure. I barely have time for my job."
That's true. And it's also exactly why you need it.
Adventure isn't a luxury that comes after. Adventure is the kedge anchor that helps you haul yourself through teaching.
When you schedule something to look forward to — a trip, a race, a creative project — you're not being irresponsible. You're being strategic. You're setting an anchor in deeper water and giving yourself something to pull toward on the hard days.
This is where the STRONG Teacher philosophy meets Kaizen — that 1% better approach. You don't need to overhaul your life. You need to schedule one thing that's worth showing up for. One adventure. One race. One moment where you're paying attention instead of just moving through.
Jeremy Jorgensen
The Mindfulness of Directing Your Attention
But here's the second part that surprised me: the GoPro itself became a practice in directing my attention.
When you're wearing a camera, you start looking differently. You notice the light. The way the landscape changes. The exact moment when your lungs start burning and you push through anyway. The moment when you realize you're actually doing this.
That's not just tourism. That's intentional attention. You're not just experiencing the adventure — you're framing it. Noticing it. Making deliberate choices about what's worth capturing and why.
Then, when you get home, you review the footage. You see what you caught. You relive the moment. You reflect on what was actually happening while you were in it. And in doing that, you're training your brain to look for the good stuff instead of dwelling on what went wrong.
Then you share it. Not because you're a content creator seeking validation, but because the act of creating itself has shifted something in how you see your life. Because you've spent hours directing your attention toward what's worth noticing. And that changes you.
That's the full cycle: set the anchor, haul toward it, pay attention while you're there, create from it, bring it home, reflect on it, share it.
What This Means for You
You don't need a GoPro. You don't need a triathlon. You don't need to be like me.
But you do need a kedge. Something small and concrete that you're committed to pulling yourself toward. Something that reminds you — on the hard Tuesday, on the heavy February, on the day when the system feels impossibly broken — that there's something worth showing up for.
It could be:
- A hiking trip you've scheduled for June
- A concert you bought tickets for
- A class you're taking for yourself
- A journal where you write what you noticed that day
- A project you're starting just because it excites you
- A race, a trip, a skill, an adventure — with or without documenting it
The point isn't the thing. The point is that you set it ahead of time, when you had the energy to decide. Then you haul yourself toward it when energy is low. And while you're doing it, you direct your attention toward what's good about it instead of what's hard.
That's not selfish. That's survival. That's the STRONG Teacher way.
And if you do it, if you commit to your adventure and show up for it, I'd love to hear about it. Tell me what your kedge is. What are you pulling yourself toward? And where are you directing your attention?
Watch the journey:
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