This is a recurring issue with the non-battler goals, they are utterly lacking in substance. They work okay for an episode or two but as an arc they feel flimsy and don't work enough as a full display of the trainer and their Pokemon's talents.
The showcases were unfortunately the nearest to a proper one and even then they were an undeveloped mish mash of all the events Serena was conveniently good at, lacking a sound enough gimmick to tape it all together. The rivals and performances didn't really challenge the protagonist or force an agency out of them like the battle goals did either, to the point they made it a popularity contest to get around it. They worked as a placeholder goal for the protagonist to be motivated by and have internal development from doing but execution in setting it all in action was bland.
The SM goals....don't really even get a long term focus, which is a shame because some of them graduate from competitions to outright employment, there's way more opportunities to come out of that. It's especially glaring in Kiawe and Mallow's case because there's been PLENTY of COTD episodes focused on bringing Pokemon-themed farm or restaurant professions to life. Even just doing tweaked rehashes of some of those like some other plot themes in the show, and placing them in a way they tie together would have been SOMETHING of value.
Sophocles and Lana don't even really have goals outright, just hobbies and interests. This wouldn't be too bad if it came into their role a bit more often but usually it's a very secondary trait. Even Sophocles' gadgetry is put into limelight FAR less often than Clemont, who himself had a rather humble role.
Lillie and Sophocles admittedly aren't quite so bad from lack of goal focus because in their place they get a reasonable amount of personality focus, with most of their limelight placing reasonable introspective into them and showing how their characterisation can drive a story, while the other non-battlers tend to be too often struggling to hold stories and just end up getting bland scout points like macguffins or boosts that don't have any long term benefit to their role, or getting the scraps of battles the writers mechanically churn out like Team Rocket curb stomps. Basically giving up on the attempt at diverse agency and just trying to superficially show how this character can kick ass, and it's hard to be that invested in Serena or Mallow roughing up the show's jobbers for the billionth time when Ash is battling a colourful gallery of formidable professionals.
