A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in a weird predicament. I’d been back from my annual trip to Peru for a few weeks, had finally caught up on my massive inbox and the work that had piled up in my absence, and was all ready to start implementing my awesome plans for this year. There was only one problem: I was feeling kind of blah. My energy was low. I wasn’t feeling bad, per se, I just wasn’t feeling my usual, high energy, let’s conquer the world, bring on the awesomeness, self. It took me a few days of just sitting with that feeling to figure out what was going on, and when I did, it honestly kind of shocked me.

I was bored.

Bored! How the hell could I be bored?! I have a fabulous life! I’m getting everything I’ve ever wanted! I have plans, BIG plans! My book is dropping on July 27^th this year. My writing is getting more authentic than ever. My business is booming and we’re looking at some major expansion and automation this year. How, in Dog’s name, I ask you, could I possibly be bored with all of that possibility and forward momentum swirling around my head? Was I being ungrateful for all that the Universe had bestowed upon me? Nope. I practice gratitude and appreciation daily (sometimes hourly). Had I forgotten to celebrate all these awesome manifestations? Nope. I celebrate a lot. And yet, I was freaking bored, and I’ve got to tell you, boredom is not comfortable for me. The absence of absolute, balls to the wall joy was almost painful to me and the whole concept irked me. I could understand being bored if I was stagnant; if I felt stuck. I could understand being bored if I didn’t have any concrete idea or vision or where I was heading, and yet I did! And it was a good feeling vision. In fact, it was a vision I’d been working on for a long time, and it was finally all coming true. And that, my puppies, is precisely what the issue was. Let me explain.

Evolution stops for no one

You see, I’d been working on my vision, to publish a book, to expand my reach and to start speaking, for a while. This was a great vision and one that, not too long ago, made me dance around the room in giddiness. The problem was that I’d evolved. In fact, thanks to my three weeks in Peru and my experiences with plant medicine, I’d just recently leveled up in a BIG way. And that leveling up gave me access to frequencies I couldn’t previously reach. It gave me access to an expanded vision, one that I hadn’t actually gotten in touch with. The fantasies and daydreams that had previously lit my fire were old news – having been defined from a vibrational place that just no longer applied to me. I’d evolved and so my vision had to evolve, as well.

When you’re in High School, you might be really excited about College. You dream about it, plan it out, look for colleges, get accepted, enthusiastically pick out your classes, buy your books, meet your new roomie, scope out the cutest boys, explore the nightlife, make new friends, learn what a hangover really is… etc. But once you’re in college for a while, once you participate in that experience, you get used to your environment. It no longer excites you. Sure, you can appreciate it and celebrate and it look for what you love about it, but the fact is, that no matter how fun something is, repetition and acclimation always eventually lead to stagnation. If you keep eating the same meal over and over, no matter how delicious and yummy it may be, it will begin to taste kind of blah. It might not ever taste bad, but it just won’t give you that same rush you used to get.

We, as humans, are designed to keep on evolving, to keep on creating. We always want MORE. Now, this is not a bad thing, providing we look for more from a place of loving where we are. This drive for more has led to innumerable technological advances. It has raised our standard of living to heights that previous generations couldn’t even imagine. If it wasn’t for this desire for more, we wouldn’t have invented planes, or the internet, or the microwave burrito. We wouldn’t have smart phones, or computers, or edible underwear. Now, while the argument can be made that all of this evolution isn’t necessarily good, I don’t think that any of us want to go back to the middle ages any time soon. After all, would you want to give up your ability to access any piece of information at a moment’s notice, or contact friends and family in an instant, no matter where they are in the world, or go back to a time when people flung their poo out the window (thank you indoor plumbing!)? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Evolution is what drives us forward. It’s inevitable. And, for the most part, it leads to a better and better life (especially when it comes from a place of appreciation for where you already are).

The best vision you have access to

When I set my vision – this grand, wonderful picture of where I wanted to go and how I wanted it to feel, it was the best representation of the energy I wanted to line up with that I had access to. At. The. Time. This is always the case. We never have access to the FINAL outcome, the manifestation that will provide us with unlimited joy for the rest of our lives. We only ever have access to the next step. This is actually a really important point, when it comes to manifesting. For example, if you decide that what the representation of what you want, the picture you have in your head of what your joy will look like, HAS TO come to fruition precisely as you are imagining it, instead of allowing it to be the current best possible representation of what you want to achieve, knowing full well that it can and will get better as you become more and more of a match to what you want, you’ll most likely restrict your ability to manifest what you truly want. You’ll begin to focus more on the HOW than the WHAT. You’ll lose your flexibility to make decisions based on what feels best, even if it doesn’t seem to be leading you towards that picture in your head, rather than trusting that as long as you feel good, you’re moving towards your desires.

So, it’s imperative that we remember that the current vision, no matter how amazing, is only the best possible representation that we have access to right now, if we want to continue to stay open to receiving our manifestations. The flip side of that coin is that even when we are flying high, even when we are receiving like crazy, even when we become manifesting mofos, we still always have to stay open to that vision changing and evolving. We still have to focus more on the feeling than the vision itself.

It’s time for an upgrade

In other words, we have to periodically give our visions and goals an upgrade. In the past, I’ve always done this on a yearly or semi-annual basis during my year-end review, a process I’ve shared with you here. I had done this review in December, and it was only February, so it didn’t even occur to me that I would already have to level up. But, of course, thanks to my aggressive focus on growth, thanks to my near obsession with releasing resistance and constant focus on feeling good, my vision simply wasn’t going to keep for another six months. The fact of the matter is that my vision had become comfortable. It didn’t scare me anymore, not even a little bit. I was a total and complete match to it. It just felt good, with not even a little bit of resistance blocking it. I’d done my job and I’d done it well. I’d lined up with what I wanted. And whenever we get what we want, it doesn’t take too long before we start looking for something even better, bigger, even more exciting.

My litmus test for creating a vision is that it must be so big that it kind of scares me. It has to give me goose bumps. It has to take my breath away. Being in a really great place and wanting even more doesn’t make us ungrateful little bastards, and it isn’t something to be ashamed of. It doesn’t mean that something has gone wrong. It simply means that it’s time to level up. If you get really good at playing tennis, you’re not going to want to play against amateurs anymore. You’re going to want to go up against pros. When you start winning against them, you’ll want to play with the best of the best. Anything less than that just isn’t exciting anymore. And that’s totally ok. In fact, anything less than that means that we’re keeping ourselves small, and that, my puppies, just isn’t any fun.

My boredom kind of snuck up on me. It took me a few days to identify it, because there was a part of me that couldn’t for the life of me understand why I might be bored, why I wasn’t as excited as I “should” be, given all the awesomeness in my life. After all, wasn’t it a bit early to already be going for more? Couldn’t I just rest there on my laurels for a bit? Well, no. I’ve never been one to rest, on laurels or anything else. I like the fast lane; I like the rush of excitement that comes from taking new risks, going into unchartered territory. It’s part of what makes the difference between something being comfortable, and something being awesome. And even the biggest awesomeness will turn to comfort eventually (or really quickly, in my case).

OMG, does it get good!

Once I’d had the realization that I was bored and that I had to upgrade my vision, I took a couple of hours and sat down to focus on the feeling I wanted to achieve, but which my vision no longer elicited from me. I began to think BIGGER. Much, MUCH bigger. We’re talking huge, global domination, see it from space kind of bigger. I began to dig into the recesses of that little place inside us, where our deepest and biggest dreams live; you know, the ones that scare us, the ones that we almost dare not dream. I’d connected with that place before, of course, but now it was time to go back. As I had evolved, new dreams, bigger dreams, had been deposited in that space, and it was time to dig them out. And as I did, the boredom instantly dissipated. Energy flowed. I bounced off the walls with joy and giddiness. I was back to being a Happy Shiny Puppy. And manifestations that I hadn’t even been able to previously imagine immediately started to flood in.

I made this shift early last week, just before I left for London to speak at the Hay House Ignite event. Now, I love to speak on stage and I was looking forward to meeting some fellow authors, so I was totally in a place of positive expectation. I was planning on having a great time no matter what, so awesomeness was pretty much a given. But it got so much better.

I arrived on Friday, and immediately broke two nails. I wasn’t going to let that shit go (I wanted to look groomed on stage!), so I asked the concierge at the hotel to recommend a day spa that allowed walk-ins. My high spirits weren’t deflated; I’d been meaning to get a mani-pedi anyway, so this was the perfect excuse. A few minutes later, a lovely Romanian beautician was expertly working away at my digits, when I was approached by a fellow patron. She shyly sidled up to me and asked “Are you Melody Fletcher?” “Yes,” I answered, not having any clue as to what was about to come. Had I dropped my wallet? Was she from the hotel? I really couldn’t have imagined what happened next. You see, she recognized me. You know, for being me, Melody Fletcher, writer, speaker, Bullshit Fairy. This had never happened to me before. I can’t even tell you how absolutely, over the moon, shit myself and don’t even care happy this made me. Oh. My. Gawd. I know that for seriously famous people this kind of thing probably gets old (although I sincerely hope it never does for me), but I was totally blown away. I had never seen myself as someone who would be stopped in a nail salon and recognized. Talk about a much bigger vision!

On Sunday, I stepped onto the Ignite stage with only a vague plan of what I wanted to talk about. I never script anything out, but I do plan out my main talking points. Essentially, I know the gist of what I’m going to be speaking about, without any details. I can’t be funny on command, or plan out jokes or insightful sound bites. I just get into a high flying state and let it happen. I’ve always been comfortable on the stage, so I wasn’t too nervous. I concentrated on feeling good, on aligning myself with a positive outcome, took a few deep breaths and stepped out onto the stage.

From that point on, I wasn’t really cognitively in charge of my mouth or body anymore. I was just in the zone, and apparently, I rocked it. My slot was just before lunch, so people were tired and thirsty and had to pee. But they stayed, they laughed, the cheered, they gasped with “aha” moments and I received a standing ovation before I was even done. Oh man. Again, this was better than anything I could’ve imagined. This was definitely a next-level manifestation. I was flying, higher than anything any drug could’ve provided, and I haven’t come down since. At one point, I had the thought, “And this is just the beginning”, because, the NOW is always just the beginning, and it took my breath away.

Is your vision big enough?

I’ve placed a Post-It that asks “Is your vision big enough?” close to my desk, where I can see it every day. When you get enough momentum going, leveling up isn’t something you just do periodically. It’s something you do constantly. I want to remind myself to check in on my vision on a very regular basis. I won’t be surprised by boredom again.

And now, I want to challenge you. Is your vision big enough? Does it scare you a little? Does it take your breath away? Remember, that you don’t have to be in a bad place to upgrade your vision. Many of you are moving out of the part of the spectrum where you’re motivated by pain, and into the upper half where it’s all about maximizing awesomeness. Have you become complacent and comfortable in a space where everything is pretty good? Have you fallen into the trap of thinking that you shouldn’t be able to ask for MORE? Or has boredom simply snuck up on you? Are you still focusing on yesterday’s vision, or have you taken the time to create today’s? Why not take the time to check in with that place inside yourself, where your grandest dreams live and see if something new has become available? I promise you, it’ll be worth it.

If you’ve benefited from this blog and think it might help others, why not invite others to join the Happy Shiny Puppy Army? Share this post on Facebook or Twitter and spread the love! Plus, I’ll totally love you forever. *whispers creepily in your ear* “Forever…” Ha.