Research Methods and Thinking |
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bunter
Senior Member Male Joined: 28 March 2011 Status: Offline Points: 123 |
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Become self-aware
Most of us think we know who we are but often that knowing excludes or pushes into the shadows the uncomfortable things about our personalities and character tending to make us look for excuses rather than facing up to and fixing any failings we have.� It is vital to know how you see and organises your world and generate meaning from your experiences. You may think of this as examining Weltanschauung, which is often loosely translated as world-view but carries the idea that our world view is shaped by who we are: our culture, our teachers, our religion, our family, our friends, our choices and indeed a whole host of things over which we have in general little control in their formative years and means that two people will not act in an identical way even when confronted by identical circumstances. Indeed, we ourselves may not think, feel and act in the same way from one more or less identical situation to another at a different time or place.� We cannot do much about who we are but we can become more aware of ourselves, our thinking, our feelings our actions; that will help us stop blaming everything or everyone but ourselves and over time our learning will change who we are because the meaning systems that people adopt, usually unconsciously, are as important or perhaps more important than logic in shaping their thinking. There is nothing really new here for Socrates, almost 3,000 years ago said "The unexamined life is not worth living" because for him growing in knowledge and character was everything. So if something in our lives or experienced cannot be questioned, no matter what it is, then ir may ultimately destroy our growth because it means we have no-go areas where learning cannot take place. This really is about managing ourselves and not running away or trying to hide flaws in our character and knowledge, and we all have them, but facing up to them and working to eradicate them. Bill Hybels when talking about himself said "It's a terribly lonely feeling to have no one to blame, look to no one to rescue you. It's rotten to realise that to find the bad guy, you just have to look in the mirror. The truth is that the only person who can put a sustainability programme together for us is us. Anything else is a self-leadership fumble, an illusion." Edited by bunter - 30 November 2012 at 9:39am |
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bunter
Senior Member Male Joined: 28 March 2011 Status: Offline Points: 123 |
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Is your life a muddle? I don't know if it helps but one might think of marble solitaire as a parable of life, your life. In marble solitaire one has to build up a simple pattern, or you can say discipline of moves and if you do, you will always end up with just one marble right in the centre of the board. Without a pattern and the discipline that goes with it you will always be in the unsatisfying position of having marbles left over, which can be all over the place and you never get to the centre. For marble solitaire there are many, many different move patterns that will work but trying to get to the centre without a pattern discipline will leave you continually frustrated and disappointed.
Now what is the centre for you? Interestingly, religious communities have solved this and believers will say their day is centred around God and spiritual devotions and almost always they give themselves as volunteers for other activities within their community and outside it and of course they feel part of a wider supportive and loving community. For those without faith there are nevertheless ways of centering one's days: it might be around music or sport or volunteering or drama, the list is endless but it most cases the centre is into some community or other. Some centre things around their normal work but I don't think that is a good idea. What we are talking about is a pattern of daily living that brings you a sense of contentment. Incidentally, there have been studies that show that many decide, even though they have no particular faith allegiance, to join a faith community where they feel at home, cared for and their children grow up in the same safe environment even though they do not necessarily commit as such to any creed. Takes some time and think about what has been said here and find a discipline, a pattern that centres you daily living. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this "Spirituality [you put in your own word] without discipline is like a river without its banks." St Paul said "At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely" |
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Matt Browne
Senior Member Male Joined: 19 April 2010 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 937 |
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Bunter, do you know Roy Baumeister's book "Willpower"? It's about the science of discipline and willpower. One of the most excellent books I've ever read.
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A religion that's intolerant of other religions can't be the world's best religion --Abdel Samad
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people--Eleanor Roosevelt |
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bunter
Senior Member Male Joined: 28 March 2011 Status: Offline Points: 123 |
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bunter
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Once you have collected your primary data (see earlier post for definition and examples). But today I will just give an analogy of the whole process.
Processing Primary Data When thinking about your primary data, keep in mind that its is what you will uses as the basis for generating your project outcome. It follows that if you say your outcome is a strategy, or a model, or a position paper then it only makes sense if you know what primary data you want and a way to combine them (called pre and post processing) so that you can manufacture that particular outcome. Suppose by way of analogy, one was making a wedding cake (analogous to your project outcome). Essentially any recipe (analogous to a research design) is in 3 parts: ingredients, quantities and making process. Ingredients (analogous to defining and locating the primary data) - We define the ingredients we need, make a list of them and then locate a shop that sells the ingredients. Implicit in this is that the levels of skill needed becomes higher and higher the closer you get to generating the outcome. Summarising: if I were making a cake (outcome) then I assemble the ingredients (the data) but I also need secondary information/data and skills: a recipe to tell me what to do, instructions on how to use the kitchen gadgets, how to set the timer, how to check cooking progress, how to manage costs, how to serve it up, definition of terms, I might watch a cooking program on TV and so on but no one would think of these extra things as ingredients (primary data) would they. By analogy this is saying you need literature support to do the work which you can use to help you know what to do and help you find meaning in your results. |
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bunter
Senior Member Male Joined: 28 March 2011 Status: Offline Points: 123 |
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