A recurring theme I see here is people who are going after higher paying jobs. I have mentored at least two people into doubling their pay, so I thought I would share my advice here:
Person A just turned 30 and has been making 6 figures (130k last I checked) for a while now. She was someone who used to work for me and kept hopping between sr. financial analyst jobs. She was very smart, and the advice I gave her was to stop searching for lateral moves with 5-10k increases (like I had also done at that age) and to start applying for manager and director jobs in the 6 figures. I think what changed her paradigm was that I pointed out that she knows MANY people in high paying prestigious jobs who are absolute idiots. We've all worked with them at some point in our careers- totally inept, highly paid people. I told her that those people get those jobs, and there are lots of them around us anywhere you go. She realized that this was true. I also advised her that she only needed ONE of these jobs to say "yes". So if she cast a net of resumes, and got a bunch of rejections, she only needed ONE to agree to hire her. She ended up being successful in a highly paid six figure director job while still in her 20s.
Person B was 35 and overeducated and way underpaid at 48,000 with 3 graduate degrees working for a nonprofit. She just lacked confidence. I found a $80,000 project manager job for her. She still felt like she was overpaid even though she was a superstar. Then she had the same realization as person A: that there are LOTS of inept people making 6 figures. Suddenly she realized that the 80k job was not just a winning lottery ticket she had stumbled on, but her new baseline, and springboard for more.
I have to qualify this by saying to be careful what you wish for. This worked for me in the my early 30s, so well in fact that I burned out after about 5 years well in the 6 figure realm, and just made a conscious decision to take a big cut to have a "happy" job. Heed the advice in Your Money or Your Life and consider your real hourly wage with the hours, commute, etc. That said, I still maintain that there are lots of 40 hour a week highly paid people that aren't as smart as you are, so the jobs do exist, you just need to land ONE.