Decline in annual performance

Has anyone dealt with their annual performance rating dropping from “exceeds expectations” to “meets expectations” without a clear reason?

I’ve consistently put in the same level of effort (if not more), and throughout the year I was told I was doing well and to keep it up. So it caught me off guard when my annual review came back lower than the previous year.

There’s no compensation impact, but it still feels discouraging. Curious how others have handled this, did you push for clarification, or just move forward?

For context, boss said I’m doing strong work overall but would like to see more “next-level” impact just without much detail on what that means or how to work toward it, especially since it wasn’t really brought up during the year.