Stop Sabotaging Your Success

In this episode, Cindy Esliger discusses the importance of priorities and how understanding them can help us make better decisions. We can get lost in the chaos of life and think we don’t have time for what matters but that’s because our priorities aren’t clear.  Priorities can be related to our careers, relationships, health, personal growth, or something else entirely, but knowing what matters h...

Cindy Esliger talks about the reality of toxic behavior in many workplaces and why it’s important to understand it to protect our safety and wellbeing. Cindy offers advice on identifying and coping with toxic behavior so we can navigate our workplace more effectively.  Toxic behavior can take many forms, from gossiping to gaslighting to harassment. Regardless of the form it takes, it can have seri...

Cindy Esliger addresses being a role model, specifically being a role model as a woman for other women. It can add a lot of pressure to the already difficult task of being a woman in male-dominated workplace but it also has benefits. Cindy examines both.  Role models show those coming up behind them what is possible to achieve. A woman in a STEM field, largely dominated by men, demonstrates to you...

Cindy Esliger explores the myth that we need to do everything on our own to succeed. Asking for help is difficult but it’s something necessary to achieving greater success. Why are we so reluctant? And how can we learn to start asking for the help we deserve?  There can be a lot of reasons why we don’t ask for help: we fear rejection, we fear that the ask will mark us as incapable, it makes us fee...

Cindy Esliger discusses the need to celebrate our wins, to recognize our own accomplishments in order to build career momentum and a sense of progress. Everyone needs to feel acknowledged and even if it’s just us celebrating our own wins, it lets us feel fulfilled and proud of our work.  Behavior change can be reinforced with positivity but unsurprisingly not with punishment. Rewarding positive ou...

Cindy Esliger addresses the omnipresent topic of worry, our tendency to dwell on negative thoughts about what the future could bring. Some worry can be motivational, but excessive worrying negatively impacts our mental health, physical health, and overall well-being. So how do we stop worrying? Cindy has some advice. Worrying is normal and some worry truly can motivate us to take action against ne...

Cindy Esliger talks about continuously moving forward in our careers rather than resting on laurels and simply expecting to succeed. There is a need to not go back, to push ourselves to improve and grow in order to stay relevant. Career stagnation is the alternative, and Cindy has insight on how to avoid that.  There are several factors that contribute to forward momentum, including building new s...

Cindy Esliger addresses the fact that how we say things, not just what we say, can have an impact on career opportunities and advancement. Our communication style matters to our credibility and helps in garnering respect. And Cindy points out that effective communication is as much about relaying information as receiving it.  Effective communication involves assertiveness, empathy, and active list...

Cindy Esliger discusses the idea of trying on a new identity as a way to develop new skills and attributes that can advance our careers. Adopting a different version of ourselves requires taking a risk but also enhances our agility and flexibility to grow into new situations. Cindy unpacks the benefits and the challenges. Our environment contributes to how we show up in the world and at work, ther...

Cindy Esliger tackles the topic of self promotion in this episode. It’s tempting to just hope that our great work will speak for itself, but in reality nobody will realize our accomplishments unless we promote them ourselves. The art of self promotion is a balance between ego and recognition and Cindy helps us navigate that line.    Being able to speak up to address our own accomplishments is part...

Are you waiting for a master career plan to be handed to you? Cindy Esliger talks about how we can go about exploring possibilities in our careers, because we are in charge of our own fulfillment. Instead of waiting on others to offer job satisfaction, we need to be open to possibilities and change.    Cindy shares some signs that indicate we might not be happy at our jobs: feeling unfulfilled, dr...

Cindy Esliger discusses feeling stuck in our careers and the potential to change where we currently are to grow into a new career. We have the power to reinvent ourselves and our careers at any time. Cindy offers guidance on how to identify what drives us so we can successfully reassess and reinvent our careers.   Reinvention of self and transitioning to a new career is not easy, Cindy will be the...

Cindy Esliger talks about envy in this episode. Different from jealousy, envy is often viewed as a negative emotion. But Cindy explains how envy can be a powerful positive force in our lives and careers if we handle it right. She advises on how to view it for the best instead of letting it impact us negatively.   Envy and jealousy are often confused as the same but envy arises when we desire somet...

Cindy Esliger addresses uncertainty and ambiguity in the workplace, defining exactly what they are and how they manifest. Navigating them can lead to stress and ineffective communication, among other things, so Cindy explains how to build resilience and learn to reframe the uncertain situations.   Uncertainty arises when we don’t have the information required to make key decisions, and ambiguity i...

Cindy Esliger examines why it is that so many of us are miserable at work. What is happening to the workplace culture that causes us such misery and what can we do to counteract it? She reveals a lot of factors from poor management to mismatched skills that cause us disconnection.   The causes of increasing workplace misery are unique to each individual but there are common roots that contribute t...

Cindy Esliger talks about ‘should have’, ‘could have’, and ‘would have’ phrases to highlight how they can lead to negative self-talk, self-blame, and feelings of regret. She guides us through how they impact our mindset and how to turn them around into possibilities instead of statements of disappointment.   ‘Should have’ and ‘could have’ root us in regret over past actions. Focusing solely on wha...

Cindy Esliger directly addresses why women in STEM need allies to build a successful career. She is referring to the type of ally with privilege and power who takes action to support women in male dominated professions. Why are allies so important and how can you be one? Cindy has some guidance to share.   The truth is that women in male dominated professions, like STEM, often face barriers to pro...

Cindy Esliger examines how to handle the challenging people we meet in our workplaces. These are the individuals who cause us stress and make the workplace a hostile place to be. Beyond identifying the types of challenging people we encounter, Cindy will offer strategies for dealing with them.   There are types of people that we can all identify in our workplaces and the ones who cause the most to...

Cindy Esliger addresses the helpfulness of having a mentor in this episode. A mentor can guide you through various stages of your career and help set you up for professional success. They aren’t necessary to have, but having that senior person in your field able to mentor you can provide you with a lot of support and knowledge.   Similar to a counselor relationship, the chemistry you have with a m...

Who are the indispensable employees in your workplace? Indispensable people remove obstacles, get things done, know where to find things, and know how to handle challenging situations. Cindy Esliger talks about how we can make ourselves indispensable to our boss and workplace. There are benefits to us as well as to our bosses when we become indispensable.  Part of becoming indispensable is making...

Cindy Esliger discusses the idea of work life balance in this episode. There is no one definition that everyone agrees on, but we all agree we want to achieve some notion of enough time for both work and personal lives without one overwhelming the other. How do we actually accomplish that, though?  The buzz word trend of “work life balance” today means it encompasses a wide array of thoughts. What...

Cindy Esliger addresses the topic of procrastination in this episode. What is procrastination, why do we do it, and what kind of procrastinator do we seem to be? Cindy answers these questions then offers up some ways to break our procrastination habit and become productive on priority tasks instead of giving in to distraction or overwhelm.  There are a lot of different ways we procrastinate. We do...

Cindy Esliger examines the dichotomy between staying open to criticism and remaining committed to our own vision in our careers. The truth is that we need to look at how we respond, both productively and unproductively, to feedback and criticism. Feedback can be useful or it can be unhelpful, so Cindy unpacks how to identify and deal with both types that we encounter.  “While you are unable to con...

Cindy Esliger takes a look at what it is that we expect of ourselves in order to lay a proper foundation for success. Do we have a purpose and a direction? Cindy explains how to understand our expectations and make plans to achieve them.  Purpose and direction are the things we all require to realize success. Purpose is our why. Direction includes vision and prioritization. Cindy talks about why p...

Cindy Esliger presents the truth about perfection in the real world in this episode. The truth is that perfection is not rewarded in real life and the behavior that earned us those gold stars in school doesn’t mean much in the world outside school. It’s time to learn what is rewarded and how to achieve it.  Bravery is what is rewarded in the real world. Where perfection is safety, bravery lets us...