A successful prediction can owe part of its success to being vague enough to recognize afterward.

Vagueness is easy to score as a hit. A loose forecast can be matched to a wide range of outcomes after they occur, and the sense of accuracy is generated by your own interpretation rather than by the prediction. The looser the claim, the more reliably it appears to come true.

The fix is to demand specifics in advance. Ask what exactly, by when, and how you would know it had failed, and write the answer down where you cannot revise it. Do this for the predictions you make about yourself too, since a plan stated vaguely enough will always feel like it more or less worked out.