E103: When Alignment Feels Boring: Are You Playing Small or Growing Quietly?

What if the dullness in your business isn’t burnout—it’s misalignment masked as comfort?

In this episode of the Kitchen Table Dreams podcast, Kimberly Houston delivers a powerful reframing for entrepreneurs who feel stuck in a season that’s “fine”—but far from fulfilling. If your business is moving, but your energy isn’t… it’s time to ask a deeper question: Are you growing, or are you playing small?

You’ll learn how to distinguish between ease and apathy, reconnect with your original vision, and stop mistaking stagnation for peace. Kimberly breaks down the habits, mindsets, and excuses that keep high-potential entrepreneurs hiding—and offers a direct path back to intentional, aligned growth.

What this episode covers:

• Why alignment isn’t always exciting—and what to do when it feels flat
• The difference between building with ease and coasting in complacency
• Signs that your business model is too small for who you’ve become
• The PROOF Method to reframe limiting beliefs that keep you stuck
• Why your goals may reflect doubt more than desire
• A practical path to reignite your alignment without burning everything down

If your business used to light you up—and now just pays the bills—it’s time to re-evaluate.

Kimberly shares her personal story of how a single moment in a cookie decorating class changed her entire trajectory and became the foundation for Teach Me How to Bake. Whether you’re feeling emotionally disconnected, quietly resentful, or just… bored, this conversation will help you realign with your mission and take bold action again.

Helpful links:

Explore the Baking My Way to 6 Figures Mastermind
Build a six-figure business that aligns with your values and your vision.
→ https://teachmehowtobake.com/mastermind

Access the free video series: Kitchen Table Dreams – Beyond the Hustle
10 strategic lessons to help you overcome burnout and move with intention.
→ https://kimberlyihouston.com/youtubeBTH

Subscribe to the Kitchen Table Dreams newsletter
Stay grounded in strategy, vision, and aligned entrepreneurship.
→ https://kimberlyihouston.com/email

For creative entrepreneurs ready to expand beyond their comfort zone—this episode is your wake-up call.

Visit https://nutrimill.com/KTD for $20.00 off your next purchase of a Bosch mixer or Nutrigrain Flour Mill

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Business Alignment and Apathy
• 3:51 Identifying Signs of Playing Small
• 6:34 The Proof Method: Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
• 9:39 Revisiting Your Why and Vision
• 18:49 Setting Stretch Goals and Taking Action
• 29:27 Evaluating Growth and Making Adjustments

Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:01.292)
Have you ever looked at your business and thought, is fine, but why does it feel kind of dull? You're not overwhelmed.

Kimberly Houston (00:14.84)
Have you ever looked at your business and thought, is fine, but why does it kind of feel dull? You're not overwhelmed, you're not struggling, but you are definitely not lit up either. So what gives? Sometimes, friends, alignment feels boring because we confuse ease with stagnation. And other times, we've built a version of success that's too small for who we've become.

Welcome to the kitchen table dreams podcast where we talk about all things entrepreneurship here and moving our kitchen table dream into our actual future. am your host. am Kimberly Houston, business strategist and alignment coach. And just for a little while, I want to have a conversation with you today on understanding when alignment feels boring, you need to ask your question. Is this still working or am I playing small? So let's get into it.

Alignment does not mean that there are constant fireworks within your business, but it should mean that you feel connected, energized, and that you are doing things in a purposeful manner more often than not. Common signs that you are mistaking apathy for ease, because those two things are not the same, is number one, you keep pushing deadlines because it doesn't really matter. Baby, I will hit a deadline. I will hit a deadline.

It drives me, right? But if you are just pushing that needle a little bit further, you are pushing that goalpost further and further away because you don't think it matters. That is apathy. That's not ease in business. Number two, your offers are selling, but you avoid promoting them. There is no fun in being the best kept secret. If you have offers that solve problems, you should be talking about them. You should be screaming about it from the rooftop. You should be speaking directly to the people who you help.

And if you are not doing so, knowing that you have a great product, knowing that it will change hundreds of thousands of lives, millions of lives even, but you choose to avoid promoting it, that's doing yourself a disservice and that's not building a business with ease. And if you find yourself doing the bare minimum, not because you're tired, but because you've outgrown it, friends, we're out of alignment. Okay? If I'm real honest with you, there...

Kimberly Houston (02:40.152)
there were times where I would tell myself, this is just a quiet season, right? Like I know that my offers are great. I know that my offers are good, but this is just, it's a quiet season. People don't have the money. This might not be the time. And the truth of the matter is, is that I wasn't stretching myself anymore. I wasn't going out and looking for new clients. I wasn't doing the work that would bring in a new audience.

Right? Like if you make a post and then you ghost on social media and you're not engaging with people, you're not promoting it, you're not sending it to your friends to tell them to share it, to comment on it, to help the algorithm boost it a little bit more, then you have become complacent and you are playing it safe. Right? So here's how you know if you're playing small. Within my three step framework of dealing with

when we are dealing with alignment, one of them is an abundance pillar. People who have worked with me know and understand that it is easy for me to realize when you're in a lack mindset and you don't, I can hear it. I can see it. Right. Because the belief that you have and a lot of people become defensive and say, well, it's my truth. Just because it's your truth doesn't make it a fact.

Right? Those two things are not synonymous. Your truth doesn't make it affect. There are things that we must think about when we are thinking about abundance. And so here's how I help you very quickly identify whether or not you are rolling in an abundance mindset. One, ask yourself this question. Are your current goals a reflection of your desires or your doubt? Are you operating from a place of fear?

That's the question. Are you operating from a place of fear? Do you have an incredible offer that you refuse to talk about because you think somebody else got something to say about it? Are you focused on the naysayers versus the people whose problems you will be solving with this offer? All right. This happens a lot with people who are like, well, I don't know what my family is going to say. They're not your target market.

Kimberly Houston (04:56.472)
They're not your target market. And for some reason right now, there's another post that's going around. It's always super viral whenever this happens where people are like, you know, my family and friends don't support me in business. They're not supposed to. You didn't build the business for your family and friends. You built the business for whoever was your target market. That ain't your family and friends. It's not their job to keep your business afloat. How do I know? Because they don't want to pay your prices, boo.

They're not going to.

I will never forget when a family member outsourced a very large function and then invited me to it. The first time it happened, I went.

The second time it happened, I didn't. The third time it happened, absolutely did not. And from that point on, people knew to stop inviting me to events. Here's why. The people in your family are not your target market. Even if they outsource something that you do and you do it well to someone else, that's not your burden to carry.

And so you have to decide how you're going to handle that. Now, who I was then is not who I am now. And I wonder if I were to go back in time 10 years, eight years, and really think about that. If all the things that I know now about business, I wonder if I would have reacted differently.

Kimberly Houston (06:43.212)
And I think I would have, I think the difference for me now versus then is that I would have talked to the cake decorator that they chose for those events. And I would have found that I would have wanted, I would have been curious about why I would have wanted to know why I would have wanted to know if maybe that was one of their friends. I would have wanted to know if this is somebody they'd been using for years. When I think about the people who were my diehard clients, I did their

graduations. did their high school graduation, college graduation, engagement parties, weddings, baby showers, their kids parties. Like, I had a bakery for 10 years. And so I was there for every celebration in their lives. And I can imagine if they would have stopped coming to me because somebody else that was near them started something new and didn't have my same skill level, right?

And so I think that at this phase of my life, probably could like at this point, I would be curious about why are you hiring that other person as opposed to like internally absorbing that, right? And so the thing you have to realize, because that did happen one of those times, I really did, like I started stalking that other person, the other cake decorator, and their work was just better.

their work was nicer, it was cleaner, and I started taking classes so that my work was nicer and it was cleaner, right? And so I upleveled my skillset. No tea, no shade. They weren't trying to hurt my feelings, but based on the structure of the event they were having, they needed something a little bit more elevated. Now, they have it once, but a couple of those other times, that's not what was going on. And those are things you need to know, right? And that's how you know that there are some people...

and your friends and family group who are your target market and you continue to work with them. But then there are some people who are not. And that was a thing that I had to get through my head was the ones who rock with me, rock with me. And the ones who don't, I'm not going to try and convince you that you should. And that's okay. Right? But when you were thinking about, I playing small as a business owner? Cause sometimes we are. Sometimes we allow other people's rejection.

Kimberly Houston (08:55.334)
or their lack of acknowledging that we do a certain thing really well in a particular industry. We take that to mean that we are not enough, that we are not good enough. And then that's what shows up in our business where we no longer show up like you are that boss. You no longer show up like you do have all that education because you done let somebody else get in your head. Your perception of whatever they think about you is what's driving your response right now.

They didn't even say anything. The people have never opened their mouths and said you were no good. They really didn't. But because you looked at something that they did, you internalized that as it's being something wrong with you, right? So let me help you if you are in that place. I have something called the proof method, and the proof method is going to help you realize if you are working from a place of abundance or if you're working from a place of lack, all right?

So the first step in this is to pause. want you to identify the thought or story that's keeping you small. At some point in your life did somebody tell you you would never succeed? Did somebody tell you that you will never be good enough? Y'all.

Somebody told me that I would never be, this has happened a couple of times, of what I would never do. The first time someone told me, they told me that my child would never be successful. And I have one of the youngest award winning Shakespearean actors in the United States of America, right? Because I let that drive me, okay? I was a girl who built businesses, empires, and families out of spite.

You hear me? Don't tell me I can't do something. Let I can show you better than I can tell you. All right? So that was the first time somebody told me I couldn't do something. And that continued throughout my adult life, You'll never survive as a single mother, thrived. You'll never survive. You'll never grow a profitable photography business. Please make my first $100,000 as an entrepreneur in food photography when they told me I would never be a photographer, right? Like I was working at a

Kimberly Houston (11:08.664)
Fight. You'll never get that master's degree. Got it. Got it. What a 4.0. You know, you will never be successful after going to culinary school and throwing away your life. Graduated top of my class. Had a very profitable bakery for 10 years. If you tell me I can't do something, baby, I'm going show you I can. And I'm going show you how well I can do it, I want you to identify the thing that keeps you small.

Now, while I did use spite to fuel a whole lot of my accomplishments, I'm reaching a place in my life where I want to be successful without spite. And that's a whole different episode. That's a whole different episode of chasing success or calling in success without spite. How do you do that? Right? Cause your motivation for doing things is a lot different. So pause and think about what story are you telling yourself? What limiting belief?

is driving your business right now. What limiting belief is making you not show up on social media? What limiting belief is causing you not to build a website? What limiting belief is causing you not to send the email? What limiting belief is causing you not to apply to teach at a conference, right? Like what is it that's holding you back? So first one is pause. Two, reframe. Is this thought true or is it fear in disguise? Are you really no good? Probably not.

You're probably great. You're probably absolutely fantastic. You're probably overly qualified for the thing you should not be telling people you can do, right? Reframe it. I want you to ask yourself, is this true? Is it? Yes or no? If it is true, right? And then the question is, well, what can I do to make myself better? Right? How do I fix it? If the thought is, I'm not good enough to do X, Y, Z, how do you build the skills in order to do that?

There are too many people with online universities. You can do Coursera. You can do so many things, right? To build your skillset. Reframed this. If the thing is true, how do I build a skillset? And then if it's not true, stop playing yourself. All right? Three, own it. Claim the desire you've been downplaying. Last June, I said on TikTok, I want to see if I can make a million dollars in a year. Am I going to make a million dollars in a year? Probably not. Probably not.

Kimberly Houston (13:29.474)
However, however.

Baby, the rooms I have been in since I made this declaration, I am around more millionaires than I've ever been in my life. One of the first things that I realized when I said I want to be a millionaire is that nobody in my life had ever done it. And I needed to be around people who've done this. There is no reason for me to reinvent the wheel. And so I have had to pay for access.

to these rooms, right? Everything is not free. You cannot say you want to be a millionaire and think you're going to get there in an expeditious manner for free. That's not how this works, right? There is a transaction before there is transformation. One of the first things I learned when I was learning about transformational leadership and coaching, there's a transaction before there's transformation.

And we just have to understand that as entrepreneurs, you want to pay somebody for the knowledge in their head because they had to pay somebody for it. And so if you want this thing, you got to claim it. I said, I want to be a millionaire. That then made me start creating decisions that were based on the fact that I want to be a millionaire. Right. Claim the desire you've been downplaying. Number four, operate differently. You need to surround yourself.

with evidence that you can have that thing. When I first said I want to be a millionaire, none of my entrepreneur friends had ever made a million dollars. They made $100,000, but me too, right? We were all on the same level. That wasn't helpful. They can't tell me how to get to seven figures if they've never done it. And so I had to go be around people who made seven figures. And being around one person who's made seven figures led me to being around 10.

Kimberly Houston (15:21.794)
which led me to being around 20, right? And so now I'm like, no, this is very possible for me. There are quite a few black women out here who have made seven figures, eight figures even, and they are open and willing to tell you how to do that without you having to reinvent the wheel, right? Systems in your business, please don't think you're going to scale your business to a million dollars, but no systems. They're like, ooh, you do everything? Absolutely not. That's not how this works.

A CEO mindset states that you have systems in place in order for you to have the life of ease that you want. In this proof method, pause, reframe, own it, operate differently. Then the last one is we're going to reframe that belief. In fueling the belief, you need to surround yourself with evidence in an aligned community. While we are doing this, you are going to have to take inspired action that might be different from things you've ever done.

When people tell me that as an entrepreneur they don't need a coach, that they can do it, y'all want me to tell you what's the first thought in my head when somebody tells me this? This is the, it don't always come out my mouth, but here's the thought. If you could do it, you would have.

That's the thought. I'm not going to even hold y'all. I'm not going to lie to you. If you have the belief that you don't need help to get to the next level in business, those of us who've already done it and we have proven methods on how you can do it without you wasting 10 years of your life, you could just spend six months and do these things and you can have it. Friend.

The thing that we're thinking is if you could do it, you would have done it by now. And if you are someone who has been in business for five years, six years, 10 years, 20 years, and you haven't broken a six figure mark yet.

Kimberly Houston (17:36.852)
Friend, I want to hold your hand when I say this. You need some help. And there are people who have done it in excellence in a fraction of the time that you think it's going to take you to do it. But the only way that's going to happen is if you move out of a lack mindset and move into an abundance mindset and you operate different.

Now, if you're someone who needs to reignite your alignment, the last two episodes have focused on alignment and have focused on how to know when you're in and out of it. focused on ways for you to test if you're in or out of alignment, little mini audits on your life and your business. Please go back and listen to those. But if you need to reignite your alignment, there's some quick ways for you to do that. All right.

Number one, revisit your original vision and rework your why. You may no longer be focused on who you were in the very beginning. When I launched Teach Me How to Bake, well, it wasn't even Teach Me How to Bake yet, pre-Teach Me How to Bake, I knew that I needed to write a book about baking. I knew that I needed to write a book about engaging kids in the kitchen. I knew that my entire brand, my life's purpose was about engaging

children from zero to 18, right? Engaging children in the kitchen. Here is why. Here's what sparked that for me. December of 2019, I was teaching full-time, teaching kids full-time in the kitchen. I was also involved in a community organization called the Junior League and I was the chair of our

Kids in the Kitchen initiative for the Junior League. And so that meant I wrote recipes for kids and taught kids all over the city of Atlanta how to make real fun, quick things. Well, one of those things that I was involved in was I would go to safe houses around the city of Atlanta and I would work with those young ladies in the safe houses.

Kimberly Houston (20:00.75)
One of those experiences we did because it was Christmas we did cookie decorating. So here's how that Saturday went so that I can bring you into the fullness of how I got here. That Saturday morning I was up and I was at work. My first class with kids in the kitchen started at 930. Okay. I had a class of five to seven year olds in one kitchen and then I had my teenagers in the back classroom. One of my chefs

called out of work that day. And that meant I needed to float back and forth between my room with babies and my room with teenagers. The room with teenagers, I had them baking cookies. They still made a meal, but then for their dessert, I had them use my cookie recipe and I had them bake off cookies, cutting out different shapes, all sorts of things, right? So that's what my teenagers were doing in the back room. And then my babies in the front room, we made frosting.

And so I let both sit both classes. They decorated some cookies. They took them home. Lovely, lovely. All the rest of the cookies in the frost net. I took it with me once I finished my morning classes. I boxed everything else up and I went to one of the safe houses. I went to one of our locations and we did cookie decorating at a Christmas party for young ladies that I had been working with for the past couple of months. And

We did cookie decorating during their Christmas party and one of the young ladies had not been home. These are young women who were survivors of sex trafficking. And the young lady had been gone from home for six months and she was going home the next week. She was going to see her mother for the first time in six months since she had been taken.

And while we were sitting there decorating cookies, she said, Chef Kim, did you give us the recipe for this? And I was like, yes, it's in your goodie bags. And then she said, great. I can't wait to do this with my mom so I can tell her what happened.

Kimberly Houston (22:14.71)
To this day, that moment completely changed everything in my life. The fact that this young lady had been sex trafficked and wanted to use cookie decorating as a way for her to tell her mother what happened to her, it completely changed everything for me. I continued to do

that particular community service project for several more months. And one of the things that I realized in doing this is that none of these girls had ever been engaged in the kitchen. None of them knew how to cook. None of them had stories of being around the table with their elders and learning their family history. And I just really could not imagine.

not having the stories that I have of being in the kitchen with my grandmother, being in the kitchen with my mother, being in the kitchen with my aunts. That was an intricate part of my childhood, right? And I was like, dude, this is one thing that regardless of age, of race, of socioeconomic status, because sex trafficking don't care. These young people had never been engaged in the kitchen.

And I knew it was my life's calling to create opportunities for parents to engage their kids in the kitchen. I can't save them all, right? I cannot save every young boy, young girl that finds themselves being sex trafficked. I understand the grooming process.

been trained in it, I've taken courses, I've become certified. I'm a mandated reporter, right? This was a part of my life for many years prior to the pandemic and I always knew that while I could not save them all, I could create things that could help save another child.

Kimberly Houston (24:27.552)
And in doing so, I knew that I needed to create things that invited kids into the kitchen, that helped their parents invite them into the kitchen. I have learned things about emotional intelligence, positive intelligence, social emotional, social emotional intelligence. And no, they're not all the same, right? I've gone to school and study. I've gotten a second master's degree in this. have learned, I've become an educator, got a master's degree in education.

to fully understand the breadth and depth of our children and our society. And my unique proposition in that is I can't save them all, but if you can learn how to invite your kids into the kitchen, maybe we can save this one.

That is what drives me. That is what my why was. That is what started Teach Me How To Bake as a company. It wasn't just, you're a pastry chef. Yeah, I am a pastry chef. But it was, how do you create a safe haven for these kids when they don't have one? The way that young lady was so excited to do cookie decorating and tell her mama what happened to her.

fundamentally changed who I was at my core. And it has driven me this far, right? So while during COVID, I realized there are so many kids who are at home with parents who don't cook. These people don't know what they're doing. Let me create content for that, right? And so the why has adjusted a little bit. The audience has adjusted a little bit. But when I revisit my original vision,

and I rework what that why was. It started in that room that day with cookie decorating and it has grown into kitchenfunwithkids.com where I'm teaching parents how to teach their kids how to have fun in the kitchen. It has grown into teach me how to bake the blog, the courses, the mastermind for other adults to learn how to do this. It's grown into books, textbooks.

Kimberly Houston (26:40.12)
for homeschooling families to be able to use to incorporate baking within their curriculum, right? It grows. But the reason that it started still affects me to this day as though I was in that room once again, right? And it literally changed who I was. I want you to sit and think about what is your why? Why did you start this business? Why did you start the business?

And you need to be able to tap back into what got you to this point. What made you start? Right? So that's the first step in re-sparking that energy. Two, set a stretch goal that excites you and scares you. If you can set a goal like me redoing three websites in the last month, that's not a stretch goal for me. That's not a stretch goal. The stretch goal would have been, I'm going do these three websites in a week. That's a stretch.

But me saying I'm going to redo three websites in a month, that's not a stretch for me. That's easy. For other people, it's not, right? And so you need to know what are things you can do of your own accord by yourself versus things that you might need to invite community in to help you with, right? Create a stretch goal that's going to excite you and also scare you just a little bit. And then number three, do something radically different for seven days. A new offer, a new audience, a new message.

right? The things that you did to get you to this point may not take you to the next step. The people who you had around you to get you to this point may not be able to go with you to the next level and friend that is okay. If your business is feeling boring, it is time for you to expand or evolve. Both of those things are going to require bravery and it may require bravery on levels that you can't even imagine and that is okay.

As we end this episode, please don't confuse lack of drama with lack of growth. Alignment can feel peaceful, but peace should still have purpose. I would love for you to journal this week on where am I playing small in my business or in my life? Where are you not challenging yourself? Where are you just coasting? Where are you being stagnant?

Kimberly Houston (29:04.063)
Right? If we think about this in terms of like weight loss, and this is something I've been going through lately, is that the things that I was doing to lose the weight that I've lost are no longer working. Right? If you've been following my journey, you know that a year ago, I started walking. And now we've been stagnant for a couple of months. Walking no longer works. Right? I still walk, but it's not doing the job that it was doing before. And so now I've had to add new things to it.

And my new thing that I've added is line dancing. So on Fridays and Saturdays, I am now doing line dancing classes virtually because dancing for an hour is a cardio workout, right? With hopes that that's going to help jumpstart the weight loss again and the stagnation will end, right? Sometimes we have to do things differently in order to get the result that we're looking for.

And so I want you to really evaluate your life and think about those things. Where are you playing small in your life and where do you need to make those adjustments? If you are someone who is a creative entrepreneur, you are invited right now to join the Kitchen Table Dreams mastermind. It's called baking your way to six figures. No, you do not have to be a baker. No, you do not have to be in the culinary field as long as you are a creative entrepreneur.

You are invited to this program where we put systems in place in your business. We are going to audit your business. We are going to put you into full alignment with where you want to go and help you build a six-figure business year after year after year and grow it to a million dollar enterprise if you so choose. If you are someone who is not connected to us on our newsletter, please make sure you check the subscription down below. Check all the things down below where you will be able to come and subscribe to the Kitchen Table Dreams newsletter.

where we are talking about ways for you to take that dream that started at your kitchen table and bring it into real life. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and until next time, stay sweet friends.