So I'd been working for 7 years at my previous company but didn't really know what was happening in the "outside world." My eyes went wide open when I found out, after several job interviews, that all the companies I applied to offered me a significantly higher salary than I expected.
The Moment
I said "Damn! This is what I'm actually worth." I wouldn't have known my worth, my value, if I hadn't resigned and tried applying to other jobs out there, even though I still haven't been accepted.
What the Interviews Felt Like
The Bright Side
But there's always a bright side. I know my value now.
I still haven't been accepted anywhere. The interviews happened, the numbers were good, and then for various reasons it didn't work out. But that's a separate story.
The Insight
Seven years in one place, especially a place that wasn't growing your skills, will warp your sense of your own value. You start to think you're worth exactly what they're paying you. You're not. The market has a completely different opinion. You just have to go ask it.
This is the thing nobody tells you about staying too long at one job. It's not just the skills that go stale. It's your self-perception. Your idea of what you deserve. Your ceiling. All of it quietly shrinks to fit the room you're in.
Getting out, even without a landing pad, even into the mess of unemployment, corrected all of that in a few months of interviews. That alone was worth the discomfort. Almost.