We inherit half our DNA from our mother, of course we are like her. I would start with physical characteristics; eye and hair color (and wave/straightness thereof -- hair of course, not eye :-) and then have a conversation with your mother about her memories of growing up and being your age? I'd also talk to siblings, cousins, aunts/uncles and see if they have any thoughts.

My grandmother use to visit and stay a long time (it was across country) when I was very young, ages 2-8 and would sleep in my room with me and I remember her snore. Well, my aunt couldn't stand her mother and when I was in my 20's and visiting my aunt (my grandmother was dead 5-10 years) I discovered she had the exact same snore as her mother! I told her and it really upset my aunt, she was determined to quit snoring as she didn't want anything to do with being like her mother

I don't know how old you are and if you remember your grandmother or have cousins, etc. but I know I was fascinated when attending family funerals to see how cousins were looking like our grandparents or their parents, etc.

Some character, personality, and other traits are inherited too. I'm a great navigator and my father and his sister, the above aunt, were both literal Navy navigators; he, ships and she, aviation. My husband and I share that attribute and his father was a naval aviator in WWII. My husband and I get along well partially because we had similar sorts of parents as well as lifestyle backgrounds.

My mother died when I was 3 and I don't remember her at all but I had a movie my father made around 1938-39 with her in a very brief, less than 30 second clip, where he's pointing the camera at her and she's laughing shyly and trying to hide her face and I literally feel what she felt when I watch it! It was a wonderful tool for me in therapy; I bought a cheap portable TV/VCR combo player and took it in and played it for my therapist to see.

Ask your mother what her favorite subjects were in school and what kind of grades she got. Think about whether she likes to read (and whether you do or not) and think about her life experiences, how she handled various things as they were happening to her for the first time (versus how she might feel about how you raise your children, for example).

My stepmother was very "aggressive" and controlling in most situations and I remember how shocked I was when my T explained that she was anxious, had to control, couldn't allow things to be as/what they were and develop as they might but had to force every issue to be the way she needed it to be. I thought about her life events and imagined what I would have felt/done in those situations and they were very similar; she had some out-of-control scary things happen to her! What do we do when we're scared, we make sure those kinds of things can't happen, we try to control our environment, take comfort in that illusion of control (fact is we can't control what's outside us and happens "to" us, only our response to it). But I learned some of my style of behavior from her as I am an anxious sort too.