WHEN Maryborough's Mel Behrens sat down to write a post she hoped would inspire others to love themselves, she never expected 20,000 people to see it.

The personal trainer wrote about the challenges she has faced in accepting her appearance due to her battle with mitochondrial disease, a condition that affects the eye.

Mel said because people accepted her as she was and knew her with only one eye, not a lot of thought was given to how self-conscious she actually felt about her appearance.

"A lot of people don't really understand," she said of why she wrote the post.

"Everyone has issues they find hard to accept."

Mel said she wanted to write the post because while for her it was her eye condition that made her self-conscious, she was aware that many people struggled with how they look and let it hold them back from living a full life.

"It can limit the way you live your life," she said.

Mel shared her uplifting post to the Facebook page set up in her capacity as a personal trainer, titled Train Like a Girl.

More than 490 people liked the post, 127 people commented and it was shared 48 times.

She shared her personal journey, the operations she has had to try to "fix" her condition and the sense of self-acceptance she had finally arrived at.

Mel said she was shocked the post had become so popular, but she hoped it gave people the confidence to enjoy their lives, whether that meant wearing a singlet in public and forgetting to be uncomfortable about untoned arms or wearing swimmers at the beach so one could go for a dip with their kids.

"Don't let small things hold you back," she said.

"We all have things we don't like about ourselves.

"We are too hard on ourselves."

Mel said while the media copped a lot of flak for creating unrealistic images of beauty, she didn't blame the media.

"We need to really focus on what we want and what we want to be rather than comparing ourselves," she said.