We are all given certain genetic gifts and talents from our earthly and Heavenly Parents.  When we fully understand what these special traits are we will learn to become all that we were meant to be in mortality.  We may begin to understand what these gifts and talents are as we study the scriptures and prayerfully ponder our Patriarchal Blessing.

Quotes were taken from talk, “Understand Who You Are”, by Elder ROBERT C. OAKS who was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this BYU devotional address was given on 21 March 2006.

"We are each individuals with singular talents, strengths, opportunities, and challenges. We are as individual as are our fingerprints or our DNA. Unfortunately we cannot discover our individuality as easily as we can identify ourselves with our fingerprints or our DNA."

"We believe we are foreordained to come to earth at a particular time into particular circumstances and that our particular set of gifts, attitudes, and talents—if properly developed and employed—will enable us to fulfill our foreordained purpose. “We have a central role in this [the] plan of happiness by virtue of our divine parentage.”

“Why is this getting-to-know-yourself process so important? [Because] It will enable you to do more with your life. It will permit you to come closer to realizing your full potential. It will let you build on and use your strengths, your gifts, and your talents to carry out your purpose in God’s plan. It will help you overcome your weaknesses and avoid your vulnerabilities. We pray to God, “Suffer us not to be led into temptation” (JST, Matthew 6:14). Shouldn’t we do our best to know our weaknesses so that we can help God “lead us not into our own personal set of temptations?”

"When considering one’s gifts and talents, it is important to first acknowledge that everyone has gifts. I believe this is a truth with both temporal gifts and with spiritual gifts. Regarding spiritual gifts, the scriptures are very clear on the subject. Section 46 of the Doctrine and Covenants highlights for us that everyone is given a spiritual gift and then enumerates these gifts":

“To fulfill our role in this plan it is important for us to come to understand ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our gifts, and our talents and to learn to use them in building up the kingdom of God.

"Satan strives to make us forget who we are. By cheap, temporary imitations of true and lasting joy he dims our memory and fogs our testimony. Through the false gods of expensive toys, unbridled passions, honors and praises of the world, and fleeting pleasures he leads us away from the divine promises of eternal, lasting fullness of joy. Satan wants us to forget our divine potential.  He wants to drag us down to his kingdom of endless misery and woe.”

“The Lord has provided us with countless scriptures and prophetic promptings to help us counter and resist these satanic pulls. One of the most powerful of these promptings is found in the fifth chapter of Helaman. Here Helaman, under the Lord’s direction, counseled his sons, Nephi and Lehi, and he repeatedly admonished them to remember who they were and from whence their marvelous spiritual heritage came:”

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. [Helaman 5:12]

“This remembering is a very important principle to help us keep in mind our true identity. This is why we partake of the sacrament each week: to renew our covenants we have made with the Lord in the waters of baptism; to remember Him and to keep His commandments; to refresh in our minds that we are and what our role is in God’s plan.”

"This is why we go back to the temple: to renew our covenants that we have made in those sacred halls and to remind ourselves of these covenants and obligations."

"When we thus remember these sacred obligations, Satan’s storms and attacks will not turn us from our quest—from pursuing our divine potential.”

Unquote: When we learn of our special qualities, it will become easier for us to understand our divine potential.