You’ve decided to share your personal stories to advocate for something you believe in. Fantastic!

But sometimes it can be overwhelming to figure out which stories to tell and where to begin.

An important first step in the process of deciding what to tell is to pull back and consider what happened? And what do I know?—to explore everything in your experience that is potential story material.

Public advocacy begins with private reflection—so before you worry about focusing and crafting your advocacy, take time for some free, unfettered exploration.

Discoveries await

Reflecting on your experiences and recollecting moments that may have slipped through your memory is an ongoing process that is different for everyone. However, it's a crucial step to take because it can lead to unexpected revelations.

By taking the time to reflect, you may discover aspects of your experiences that you had not considered sharing before. These moments could be perfect examples—living proof—of your advocacy messages. Performing a personal inventory is often where we discover the roots of our advocacy.

How I found one of my arts and humanities advocacy stories

Some years ago, I was invited to deliver a keynote presentation at a conference of museum professionals about the role of personal stories in museum advocacy. I jumped at the chance because—unbeknownst to the conference organizers—I consider myself a museum advocate.

Not only do I visit museums (and have my entire life), I hold museum memberships, I volunteer at them, I’ve worked at and consulted with them, I donate to them and when I retire I just know that I’ll end up a volunteer docent.

So, as I prepared my remarks for the keynote, I began by taking a step back and exploring what it means to me personally to be a museum advocate, what stories and experiences I might tap to engage others in my advocacy.

Here are some of the things I did to take stock of my personal inventory:

• I made a list of every museum or history center or science center I could remember visiting or had some personal connection to. (It’s a long list!)

• I looked through photos to jog my memory about museum visits, vacations, field trips—and who was there with me.

• I talked to friends and family. I asked my siblings: what was the first museum we were lucky enough to visit as kids? I asked friends: what do you remember about that exhibit we went to see?

And more. This exploration surfaced a lot of “raw material.”

I recalled midwestern road trips with friends and family that were memorable because we stopped at small-town store-front history museums or nature centers in Cobden, Illinois or Rochester, Minnesota.

I reviewed my years living in southeast Michigan and visiting the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, the Hands On Museum in Ann Arbor, the Motown Museum in Detroit (where my sisters stood right where the Supremes had!) and the Detroit Institute of Arts, a museum my college friend Cindy visits regularly to view one particular painting that always brings her to tears. 

I remembered reflecting before Prince’s purple outfit at the Minnesota History Museum, and visiting the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where I pushed my mother’s wheelchair as close as possible to a painting she knew every inch of … because she had a jigsaw-puzzle version of it, one of her favorites.

As I reflected on these memories, I began to see a theme emerge: for me, museums are about people and the experiences they have there. But what kind of experiences?

Then I remembered an episode I hadn’t thought of in years.

Making the link between memory and message

When my family came to visit me in Minneapolis for the first time, I took them to the Walker Art Center’s sculpture garden. (It’s what you do when people visit Minneapolis—in the summer.)

The group was: my mother (a former librarian and an art-lover), my father (retired from construction and real estate) and my grandmother, who had emigrated from Italy in the 1920s and at this time was probably in her 80s.

That beautiful summer day, as we walked among the abstract sculptures, I was struck by how different my three family members’ responses were to the experience. My mother engaged with the works, thinking about the artists’ intent or mentioning what was called to mind. My father wondered how they were built: “Is this wood? Look at the size of those hex bolts!”

But my grandmother walked a few paces behind us, simply shaking her head, clearly not impressed by the work of Mark di Suvero or Eva Rothschild.

When we left the garden and were driving back to my apartment, we stopped at an intersection where there was a lot of building and road construction. Along the side of the road were parked two huge cranes, their metal arms stretched high into the sky. After a moment of silence, my grandmother nudged me, pointed to the cranes and said, “Now what the hell are those supposed to be?”

I smile remembering that moment—and it elicited smiles when I shared it during my keynote.

I shared it not (only) for that reaction, but because it perfectly captures one of the reasons I’m an advocate for museums: Because museums can challenge us to see the world through a new lens. Even though my grandmother resisted engaging with the abstract sculptures around her, the encounter nevertheless altered, momentarily, her view of the literal world.

Give yourself the gift of reflection

Without taking the time to reflect and explore, I might have forgotten that memory and missed the connection it holds to one of my deep beliefs about the value of museums (or all encounters with art and artifact, for that matter).

Shirley Jackson, writing in Experience and Fiction, suggests a way to approach life to find its stories: “Attack it in the beginning the way a puppy attacks an old shoe. Shake it, snarl at it, sneak up on it from various angles.”

Experiences both large and small, obvious and subtle, all hold potential as parts of your advocacy stories. So enjoy this free, private exploration of what could be made public.