Stop Sabotaging Your Success

Cindy Esliger explores the real cost of losing belief in ourselves and how self-doubt quietly limits career growth, especially for women in STEM and other male-dominated workplaces. Staying silent, downplaying achievements, and waiting for permission can feel like the safer path, but those choices create invisibility over time and prevent us from pursuing opportunities we’ve already earned. Cindy...

In this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success , Cindy Esliger dives into why building professional relationships can feel uncomfortable, especially for women working in engineering, STEM, and other male-dominated environments. While technical competence matters, Cindy explains that career growth is also shaped by the informal networks we build through interaction. She discusses keeping everyone...

In this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success , Cindy Esliger explores a difficult truth about career growth: not everyone in a professional circle is invested in seeing someone succeed. She explains how women in engineering and other male-dominated workplaces can mistake politeness for genuine support, especially when supportive relationships feel scarce. Cindy challenges us to stop assuming th...

In this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success , Cindy Esliger dives into an uncomfortable workplace reality: some people genuinely want to see us succeed, while others see us as a convenient stepping stone for their own advancement. She explains how many of us, especially women in male-dominated environments, are conditioned to be helpful and accommodating without questioning whether those relat...

In this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success , Cindy Esliger explores why so many professionals achieve a goal only to immediately move the goalposts and focus on what is still not enough. She explains how productivity can become a form of self-soothing, especially in environments where recognition is scarce and we feel we need to constantly prove our value. Cindy examines the connection betwee...

Cindy Esliger addresses the uncomfortable truth that technical competence is really only the price of admission in today’s workplace, not advancement, especially for women navigating male-dominated industries. We tend to believe that keeping our heads down and producing excellent work will naturally lead to advancement, but Cindy explains why career growth depends just as much on communication, re...

Cindy Esliger explores why personal and professional growth often feels threatening. This feeling can be compounded for women working in environments where they already feel constant pressure to prove themselves. Admitting that we are improving can feel risky because it means acknowledging that we didn’t always have all the answers. Cindy explains how many of us were conditioned through school and...

Cindy Esliger unpacks the hidden cost of self-doubt and how hesitation quietly sabotages career growth. In competitive workplaces, many women spend too much time overthinking conversations and waiting to feel ready. We hold back instead of speaking up. Cindy explains that confidence is not a personality trait that a few of us luck into; it’s a skill that can be developed. Action, resilience, and s...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger explores the difficult balance between standing up for ourselves at work and maintaining professionalism. This is especially true in environments where women in STEM are talked over or subjected to inappropriate comments. She explains that staying silent in the face of disrespect can quietly damage confidence and credibility and, over time, will impede career growth....

In this episode, Cindy Esliger explores why fawning in the workplace impacts your career. Fawning is that automatic “yes” that shows up before there’s even time to think. She explains how fawning is not just people pleasing, but a nervous system response that activates when fight, flight, or freeze aren’t adequate options. In professional environments, this often looks like overcommitting and cons...

Cindy Esliger challenges the habit of making career decisions based only on what seems realistic, explaining how probability thinking keeps many professionals stuck below their potential. By relying on past patterns in our organizations, we treat incomplete data as the full picture and limit what we go after. She draws a clear distinction between probability as pattern recognition and possibility...

Cindy Esliger examines how constantly relying on external validation keeps capable professionals stuck. She describes a pattern of achieving meaningful results but dismissing them while endlessly waiting for recognition to confirm our competence. In environments where validation is inconsistent or biased, this becomes a losing strategy. By downplaying accomplishments and deferring to the opinions...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger challenges how we tend towards defensive career management and invites us to consider what it would look like to build a career from a position of strength instead of constant protection. She describes how many professionals, especially in demanding or biased environments, are conditioned to anticipate criticism and brace for pushback before it even happens. These be...

Cindy Esliger tackles the reality of why avoiding difficult workplace interactions often makes things worse. She describes the familiar experience of conversations that make our stomachs drop, and our minds go blank, especially when dealing with colleagues who undermine or take credit for our work. Cindy explains that workplace bullying often shows up in subtle ways like interruptions, exclusion,...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger explores the instinct to hold onto everything and introduces the idea of strategically letting things fall through the cracks on purpose. She explains how many professionals, especially in technical fields, were rewarded early on for doing excellent work independently, only to find that the workplace values relationships and strategic positioning just as much. As a r...

Cindy Esliger challenges the habit of treating a career like a group decision in this episode, emphasizing that outsourcing choices to managers, mentors, and colleagues is a subtle but powerful form of self-sabotage. She describes how high performers often fall into the trap of seeking permission, especially in environments where their instincts are questioned and their contributions go unrecogniz...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger discusses why receiving feedback can feel so emotionally overwhelming and how it can quietly derail careers if left unchecked. She describes the common experience of replaying performance reviews long after they happen, questioning our abilities, and letting a single piece of criticism overshadow everything else. Cindy focuses on how feedback often triggers imposter...

In this episode, Cindy explores the difficult but important truth that sometimes professional relationships that appear supportive are actually holding us back. She discusses how loyalty, especially in competitive or male-dominated industries, can quietly become a trap. As professionals, we pride ourselves on being dependable team players, but over time, that loyalty can keep us stuck in roles or...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger challenges the conventional advice that building a strong support network is essential for career success. While cheerleaders who validate our experiences and celebrate our wins are important, they can also unintentionally keep us stuck. When everyone around us agrees with our perspective, we risk creating an echo chamber, one that reinforces our frustrations without...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger explores why adaptation is no longer optional in today’s workplace. Often, we double down on working harder, believing our results will eventually speak for themselves. Instead, we become boxed into narrow specialties while others move ahead into broader, more visible roles. Cindy explains how staying the same can quietly become the bigger risk, especially as industr...

In this episode, Cindy Esliger dives into what it’s like being the only woman in a room full of men, and the unique challenges that present to our careers. When there’s no other woman, it creates a kind of professional loneliness that’s hard to explain. But worse, with nobody like us to gauge our progress against, compare notes with, and validate our experiences, we end up isolated and self-doubti...

Cindy Esliger addresses the reality that we often fail to recognize our own growth and why that matters to our careers. Our brains are wired to overlook wins, and Cindy explores why this is, as well as what cognitive biases are eroding our confidence. When we can’t see our own progress, we tend to focus on our perceived failures and don’t hold onto praise as long as we hold onto negativity. Why th...

Cindy Esliger unpacks the reality about first impressions and how they can quietly make or break a professional trajectory at work. While we tell ourselves that what’s on the inside is what matters, the uncomfortable truth about first impressions can’t be ignored. In a work setting, the way we carry ourselves, our posture, expression, and even choice of clothing can all determine how seriously we...

Cindy Esliger addresses defensiveness at work, that tendency that some of us have to walk into work already braced for a fight. We assume criticism is coming even when it isn’t and tend to perceive questions directed at us as personal attacks. We probably don’t even realize we’re doing it. Cindy breaks down why we assume a defensive posture and how to identify those patterns, and she shows what it...

Cindy Esliger discusses the difference between being good at our jobs and being easy to work with in this episode. Self-awareness is the key to career growth, and it’s not just about knowing our strengths or how we like to work. It’s about understanding how our behavior impacts others and how we’re perceived. Cindy breaks down exactly what true self-awareness looks like and why it matters more tha...