How to Stop Standing in Your Own Way and Start Taking Care of Yourself, According to Melissa Wood-Tepperberg

The workout and wellness leader offered up some great self-care advice.

Melissa Wood-Tepperberg.Alberto Tamargo/Getty Images

Workout and wellness leader Melissa Wood-Tepperberg took to the streets of New York city recently to ask strangers the question, “What stops you from taking care of yourself?”

While each response differed slightly, there was an overarching theme in all of the answers that she received. It is not any one thing (work, other commitments or other people) that keeps each of us from self-care. We are the ones who tend to stand in our own way.

“As hard as it is to hear this, you are the person standing in the way of taking care of yourself,” Wood-Tepperberg explained toward the end of the montage. “Once you own that and take real ownership over that, no one can change that but you.”

If, upon reflection, you find that this is true of yourself, the MWH founder has a message for you.

“Something is better than nothing,” she said of how to start taking care of yourself. Once you can recognize that you’re standing in your own way, all it takes is a small first step to make a change. “I always say, ‘Start small. One foot in front of the other.’ Just do one thing, and I guarantee that is going to motivate and inspire you to come back the next day and the next day and the next day. Because you are entirely up to you.”

Change doesn’t have to take the form of huge shifts. The first step is changing your mindset, then proceeding from there.

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