10# The Only Thing That Matters Is the Next Step — and How Not to Get Intimidated by a Big Goal.

Hello and welcome.
My name is Karolina, and I’m so happy to have you here on my podcast, Heal Yourself.

This is where I share my own healing journey, along with the experiences I’ve gathered while guiding others on their path to healing — both body and soul. My hope is that through these stories, you’ll learn how to heal yourself too.

When we’re facing a long, serious, or chronic illness, the idea of healing can feel like an enormous, almost impossible mountain to climb. We stand at the bottom, staring up at the distant peak, thinking: There’s no way I’ll ever get there. It’s too far, too high, too hard.

Well, I’ve climbed a few of those mountains myself — both metaphorically and quite literally.
And today, I want to share the story of how I made it all the way to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro — because it beautifully reflects what’s truly essential whenever we’re trying to overcome something. Whether it’s a real mountain or the mountain of a big life goal.

I used to love pushing my limits — testing how far I could go. One day, I stumbled upon a blog post by a girl describing her experience climbing Kilimanjaro — how incredibly hard and honestly quite awful it was. And instead of being discouraged, I was fascinated.
Something inside me lit up. Anything that sounded like a challenge that would push me to my absolute edge — I was drawn to it. So after reading her story, I decided: I want to climb Kilimanjaro myself.

The highest altitude I had ever reached before was in the Himalayas — around 4,500 meters above sea level. Even that was extremely tough. I remember barely being able to breathe.
It was always so humbling to watch the locals — the monks who lived there, many of them three times my age — gracefully hopping up the rocks in their sandals, while I was struggling to take one step forward with a walking stick.

But Kilimanjaro is another 1,500 meters higher. I knew from the start it would be a serious challenge.
Whether or not you develop altitude sickness depends on many factors — and one of the biggest is whether your body has ever experienced such altitude before. For me, it hadn’t. So the chances of getting sick were pretty high.

The trek itself takes seven days — five days up, two days down. The first four days were fine — challenging, of course, but manageable. I had headaches, I was tired, but the changing scenery was so breathtaking it balanced everything out.

The real challenge came on the last day — the summit day.
That night, we slept at around 4,650 meters — the highest I’d ever been. And sleeping at that altitude is incredibly hard. Your body simply doesn’t get enough oxygen. Most of us didn’t sleep at all.
We were told to get up at midnight — because nobody really sleeps anyway, and it’s better to use that time to start climbing.

I maybe slept two hours — light, broken sleep. I kept waking up gasping for air, my lungs panicking as if I was suffocating, even though I was breathing. The air was just too thin.

The alarm went off at 1 a.m.
Despite the exhaustion, I felt a surge of adrenaline and excitement — I was finally going to climb to the top. I hadn’t eaten much the previous day because my body refused to digest anything. Every time I tried to eat, I’d throw up.
So that morning, I just had tea with sugar — probably six tablespoons of it — just to get some energy.

We started walking in complete darkness, our headlamps lighting the way. The cold was brutal — around minus 13 degrees — and the wind was fierce. I had heating pads in my boots and gloves, but even so, my fingers and toes were freezing.

After about an hour, when we passed the 5,000-meter mark, I started hallucinating. Everything began to ripple. The ground seemed to move — sometimes closer, sometimes farther away.
I saw small rainbows around me. That part wasn’t so bad — but when the ground started to wave and I began stepping into nothingness, that was harder. I kept tripping and falling.

Each of us had our own personal guide that day. My guide’s name was Jamal. He always walked just in front of me, and every time I stumbled, he instinctively reached his hand back so I could grab it and steady myself.

At one point, even he started to look strange — his face seemed to morph every time I looked at him. That’s how strong the hallucinations were.

After about five hours, the sun began to rise — and I realized I was moving really slowly. Slower than everyone else. Normally, you’re already at the top by sunrise, but I was probably not even halfway there.

As the light grew, the hallucinations faded, but the pain intensified. I started to feel pain in every part of my body — my scalp, my eyelids, my teeth, my gums, even my organs. My lungs had been aching for days, but now it felt like needles piercing through every inch of me.

And I knew it would only get worse the higher I went.
But turning back wasn’t an option.

I was wearing a small device on my finger measuring my oxygen levels, and Jamal kept checking it to make sure I wasn’t in real danger. Still, my body was struggling.

Then came the worst headache of my life. It felt like my skull was being crushed from the outside and stretched from the inside at the same time.
I threw up again — even though there was nothing left in my stomach. Just the altitude.

That’s when my brain started shutting down non-essential functions. One of the first things to go was language. I stopped being able to speak English — without realizing it. I thought I was still speaking English, but I was actually mumbling in Czech, or sometimes just incoherent sounds.

Later, Jamal told me, “You were talking to me the whole time — but it sounded like Russian!”
And I laughed, “Russian? I don’t even speak Russian!”

I also started dropping my walking poles, forgetting to move my legs — just standing there thinking I was walking. Jamal would turn to me and say, “What are you doing?” and I’d answer, “I’m walking.”
And he’d say, “No, you’re standing.”
And I’d just go, “Oh. I thought I was walking.”

My brain was simply switching off.

Everything hurt. Even drinking water was agony. The cold water hitting my stomach felt like someone kicking me from the inside.
And that’s when I realized — if I wanted to make it to the top, I could only focus on one thing: the next step.

I looked up one last time — the summit looked impossibly far away. And in that moment, I decided to stop thinking about the peak altogether.

From then on, all that mattered was one single step. Just one.
Because one more step — you can always take one more step.
And after that, another.

I kept repeating to myself:
Breathe. Walk. Eyes open.
Breathe. Walk. Eyes open.

Because I kept forgetting to breathe. Forgetting to keep my eyes open. Forgetting to move.

Sometimes my “steps” were just lifting my foot a few millimeters. Barely any movement. But still — it was forward. And that’s all that mattered.

Eventually — somehow — I saw the summit sign in the distance. And even though I was completely exhausted, my body suddenly found new energy. Adrenaline took over. I ran the last few steps.

And that moment — that moment when I reached the top — was pure magic.

But even there, in the most euphoric moment, I realized something:
It was never about the big leap. It was always about the small steps.

Every big goal in life is your own personal Kilimanjaro. And the only thing that truly matters is the next step — the smallest one you can take right now.

You can dream big, visualize your goal — yes, that’s important. But then you need to shift your focus entirely to the small daily steps that will get you there.
Those small steps — those quiet choices you make every day — they become your path.

So now, take a moment and ask yourself — what is your big goal?
If you can, close your eyes.
See the mountain.
See yourself standing at the top — you made it.
And now… what’s the smallest step you can take right now, in this very moment, to move closer?

Once you take that step — what’s the next one?
And the next?

Because that’s all it ever is — one small step at a time.

If you’d like to read the full story of my Kilimanjaro climb, I’ll link the blog post in the episode notes — maybe it will inspire you to take on your own mountain, whatever form it takes.

Looking back, I can now see that my old need to constantly prove myself — to push, to win — was actually hurting my body.
My body was begging me to stop. But my ego kept saying, You have to make it.
And yes — I did make it. But now, years later, I no longer feel the need to prove anything.

Still, that experience taught me something powerful — that I can do anything if I break it down into small, manageable pieces.
Into little decisions.
Little moments of pain.
Because one moment of pain — you can always handle that. And then another. And another.

It was a physical reminder that step by step, you really can get anywhere. No matter how long it takes. Everyone has their own pace, their own conditions, their own mountain.

And healing is exactly the same.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes. The only thing that matters is that you keep taking one step at a time.

So if you’re standing in front of your own mountain right now — and it feels impossible — just remember: the only thing you need to focus on is your next step. Nothing more. Just one step.

To support you on your journey, I’ve added a guided visualization to this episode — a manifestation practice, but not the kind that focuses only on the outcome. This one guides you through the small steps — the ones that actually get you there. You’ll find the link in the episode notes.

I hope you enjoy it.
And I hope today’s episode gave you something — maybe a bit of encouragement, maybe a gentle reminder.
If it did, I’d love to hear from you. Your messages and feedback truly mean the world to me.

Thank you so much for being here with me today.
I wish you a beautiful rest of your day — and I’ll see you, or rather hear you, next time.

With love,
Karolina