Unfortunately this is the case, there are a dozen good ways to ruin a good lipo. A little list of tips:

1 - always balance your lipo (the "charge" feature on your charger is not the same, do not use it)
2 - storage charge when you plan to put it away, too much or too little charge on an idle battery can do damage.
3 - avoid extreme temperatures, especially heat. If you have the car at work with you bring the lipo in so it is not in your hot car this summer.
4 - do not run it down too low, this is not a problem on most ESCs as they have a low voltage cut off, make sure that is set for the battery you use (2s / 3s / 4s / etc.) In cases with no LVC you can get an external "tester" that will beep with an alarm if a cell is at LVC, not as good as using one built into the ESC, but it works.