It’s easy to unintentionally undervalue your skills, which means it’s also easy to do things for free or very little that you might otherwise use to rake in the dough.

Partly, this is because we tend to take the things we’re highly competent at for granted. Since it’s easy for us to do them, we assume that others could do them just as easily.

But that’s rarely the case.

Find those skills

Most of us have skills that would leave others staring in bewilderment if they tried to do them. To identify those skills, make a list of the things you do regularly without a lot of effort. (Even if that list seems silly.)

For me that list would include things like browsing the web, using Pinterest as a blogger, being active on Twitter, installing WordPress, editing WordPress themes, blogging, html, writing, designing things in Photoshop, creating paintings, etc. You get the idea.

Those are all things that I do because I like doing them, but they’re also things many people would pay someone to do. They might even pay someone enormous sums to do them, if those things were packaged in the right way. I know someone who got paid 5 figures to design a site in WordPress. (If only that were me!)

Are you getting paid enough?

Even if you ARE already getting paid for the skills you’ve identified, you may still be undervaluing them if you haven’t taken a look at the market recently. It’s good to check with others in similar fields to be sure that you’re actually getting paid as much as your skills are worth.

This is especially the case on the job (and even more so if you’ve been in the same job for more than a couple of years.) It can literally pay to look around and see what others in similar positions are making — or to go out and apply for a new job yourself. Every bump you get in pay now is that much more of an improvement long term.