Finding Your True Potential

Your successes highlight your gifts; your disappointments help you learn your limitations and identify areas to work on. These important lessons directly affect who you are in God’s plan and play a major role in helping you determine your true identity.
-Robert C Oaks

Lately I have been thinking hard about who I am. Who is Allison? Am I a good person? What makes me the person that I am? What would I like to work on to better myself and make myself more like the person I want to be? What parts of myself am I not focusing on like I should and therefore letting my potential pass me by?

Sometimes I wish I had taken the time to ask these questions back when I was fifteen and still attending high school. I feel that I allowed my potential in my education to be wasted in many ways as I didn’t apply myself like I should have. I wish I could have seen the bigger picture and done something about it then rather than looking back and having regrets. It is like the quote from the life of President Henry B. Eyring, "When you find who you are, you will be sorry you didn’t try harder."

I can not change the past, but I can decide what I do with my future. I can start today and make a difference.

I have been trying to figure out what talents I have and improve upon them. One of the things I have always enjoyed doing is taking pictures. I used to do quite a bit of photography but since I haven’t spent much time doing it lately I have allowed my skills to become rusty. I have decided to do something about it. I have been researching online and trying to learn some new things. I did a photo shoot yesterday and I have another one scheduled for tomorrow. The one tomorrow is focused on an area of portraits I have never done before so I am a bit nervous but also really excited.

Some of the changes I want to make are not just based on skills and abilities. I want to also become a better person. I want to have people feel good when they are in my presence. I want to find the good in the world around me and share it with whomever I come in contact with. I have been trying not to say unkind things about others and when I become frustrated I try to take a deep breath and find ways to improve the situation or step aside and look at it from a different angle. I am trying to become a better friend, a better daughter, a better person.

I hope to take the advice of Elder Richard G. Scott, "When you push against the boundaries of experience into the twilight of the unknown, the Lord will strengthen you. The beauty of your eternal soul will begin to unfold."

May the Lord guide me in this quest and may I have patience with myself as I strive to find my true potential and become just a little bit better.