Artists don't distinguish between...

Artists don’t distinguish between the act of making something and the act of thinking about it — thinking and making evolve together in an emergent, concurrent fashion. As a result, when approaching a project, an artist often doesn’t seem to plan it out. She just goes ahead and begins, all the while collecting data that inform how she will continue. A large part of what drives her confidence to move forward is her faith in her ability to course correct and improvise as she goes.

— John Maeda, “Redesigning Leadership”

This quote from John Maeda’s book, Redesigning Leadership really resonated with me. It captures my approach to problems and new challenges perfectly. I don’t stress too much about having every step planned out — I’ve learned to trust my intuition and follow new paths as they appear, having faith that they will lead me to a successful outcome.

“Improvise as she goes.” I never would have thought of it like that, but “improvising” is a great way to describe my approach.