The best way i can best sum up my last few weeks of research is like being on a rollercoaster, you have moments of euphoria and moments of terror and dread, questioning why did i ever go on this? This has been in my experience, something which resonates with my journey of Laidlaw research especially in the past few weeks.
The past few weeks, I have pulled my hair out being on the verge of tears over methodological problems, feeling the work crunch as i realise i have only a short limited time to get my research finished. At one point making me serious re-consider why i took on the Laidlaw research and leadership scholarship. But i have also had moments of joy and happiness, especially in the past week, when my research which im soo passionate about has came together and methological decisions that i had taken (although at the time increased my workload in a time where i already under pressure) had paid off.
An example of this was realising that after collecting all my quanitative data in week 4, realising the software i'd used had coded my manifestos wrong, failing to code individual paragraphs - resulting in me having to think outside the box, change my measurment to sentence level and go back to the week 2 task of cleaning data. Ultimately leading me to having to learn how the program interprets paragraphs, and thus reformat my data so the software seen my sentences as paragraphs, overcoming a software limitation. Or another example at the end of week 4, after scrapping my planned qualitative study, realising that the expanded quantative data i'd spent that week collating and analysising was fruitless. Thus causing me to decide to reintroduce a qualitative component, read and code almost 1000 references on a whim, because it would lead to a more complete and robust piece of research.
Sitting writing this now, i have a completed poster and almost have my paper written, i reflect on that in research, no matter how prepared you are starting, even having a wonderfully laid out plan, things will change and you simply need to adapt and overcome. This is a learning i will take forward, make me a better researcher in the future and prepare me for my future academic study for instance my dissertation.
More importantly its the skills of perseverance and resilience that have become obvious that are key skills both in research and leadership. At the times throughout this journey when i've wanted to give up, i havent, presented with problems you problem solve, presented with feelings of despair, you step back, think and approach from a different angle.
The challenges and emotions experienced during research are realativly miniscule in comparision to every individuals' unique experiences and different life journies. For me i've faced numerous challenges and barriers related to disability and health issues, yet i never let those stop me. So why give up during research? Thats why i believe perseverance and resilience are intergral to leadership and the importance of perspective.