It’s the phrase that has completely changed my life. Vague goals get vague results. In this episode I break down exactly what that means, where it came from and how can you apply it to your own life. Stop making excuses and start crushing your specific goals.

As Greg Reid says: “A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.”

Let me know what your goals are so we can all cheer you along. Tag me on Instagram or Twitter @ChrisVanVliet and use the hashtag #VagueGoalsGetVagueResults

Well how are you my friends? Welcome back! Thanks for checking this out. Today I want to dive into the phrase that has completely changed my life. Vague goals get vague results.

Where it come from? What exactly does it mean? And how can it help you in your own life?

These are all great questions — and hopefully by the end of this, this will be a phrase that changes YOUR life as well. OK!

VAGUE GOALS GET VAGUE RESULTS.

I’m sure you’ve heard me say it before… I mean, hey, I even put it on a t-shirt. [get your Vague goals get vague results T-shirt here]. And it came from the idea that a lot of people set goals with no real direction.

Stop me if you’ve heard one of these before:

• I’m going to lose some weight this year.
• I want to read more often.
• I’m going to be more active.
• I want to make more money.

Maybe you’ve even said one of these before. All of these are perfect examples of extremely vague goals. It’s like getting into your car without knowing where you’re heading. You’ll just drive around aimlessly because you don’t have a destination. How long will that drive be? Will you end up in Tennessee or Tijuana?

Take that first one for example, I’m going to lose some weight this year. Well if you lose ONE pound at some point over the calendar year, Congratulations, you’ve accomplished your goal of losing some weight this year. But I’m guessing that’s probably not what that person meant when they said that.

The opposite of vague goals get vague results is specific goals get specific results. A better version of that weight loss goal would be something like “I am going to lose 10 pounds by July 31” or “I am going to lose 25 pounds before my birthday.” A specific number by a specific date. Instead of saying “I want to make more money.” A better version would be “I want to make an extra $100 a week, every week for the rest of the year.”

My specific goal:

You’ve seen me do this all this time…. most recently, I did it here on the podcast. I didn’t say “my goal is to get more reviews this year”. I set a very specific number and a very specific date — I said let’s hit 2000 reviews before my birthday, which is May 19. And guess what, with your help. We did it! We are well over 2,000 now. But what was so cool about that, is we could all watch it go from 1500 reviews to, 1550… to 1600, to 1700 and so on. We knew exactly what we were headed for.

And I think what really helped that goal get accomplished, was I made it public.. I put it out there on the podcast and also on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram… so now I needed to be accountable for it. Now we are all in this together and how much further we had to go!

And think about that with whatever goal it is that you’re headed towards. If it’s something to do with your diet or weight loss -make it public, now you’ve got a team of supporters to cheer you on and also to keep you in line when they see you with a donut in your hand or in line for your 4th helping at Golden Corral. But hey, I get it, that Chocolate Wonderfall is incredible.

Where the phrase came from:

The great Brian Tracy said it best when he said , “A goal without a plan is only a dream”.

And Greg Reid took it one step further when he said:
“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.”

This has been a theme throughout my whole career. I’m incredibly grateful for the fact that I’ve been working in TV since 2005.

When I was about to graduate from college, I went to Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, I knew I needed an internship to get my foot in the door and hopefully have that give me the real world experience to get a job. I reached out to every station and I heard crickets. I knew there was a TV station an hour away from my hometown, CHEX TV in Peterborough, Ontario. So I googled and found the name and email address of the general manager. So I sent him an email saying I would be there on spring break and wanted to talk about an internship. This was a total lie, I had no intention of going there. But he wrote back and said “Well if you are going to be in the area then come on by.” That internship turned into a job, and the rest is history.

So maybe… your goal is career oriented, perhaps it’s something to with your relationship, maybe it’s your family, maybe you want to spend more time with your kids. Perhaps it’s fitness related and you want to lose weight or run a marathon. Maybe you want more subscribers on YouTube, followers on Instagram. Maybe you want to start making money from your podcast. Whatever it is, get specific about it.

The takeaway:

Figure out what that goal is… and what the path is to get there and write it down. Today. In fact, put it out there on Twitter or Instagram, and tag me so we can all cheer you along as you crush that specific goal.

You’ve got this! If somebody else is doing what you want to do, that just means that you can do it to. Reverse engineer their path back to where you are. And most importantly, don’t make excuses. If you want to do it, you’ll find a way. And if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.

Let me know your goals on Twitter with the hashtag #Vaguegoalsgetvagueresults