Whoever was the first to adapt this goal had a good point. I think a good goal should be...

...achievable. Setting high standards is one way to get good results but goals should be realistic. It is discouraging when a goal that you’ve been working with turns out to be impossible. Setting achievable goals reduces the possibility of failure.

...specific enough so that you know when you have achieved it. For example, a goal like “visit my parents more often” is not a good one, because there is no point of reference as to what counts as “more often”. A better goal would be something like “visit my parents at least twice every month during this year”.

...time-constrained, because you can never know what happens in the future. I can’t mark a goal like “stretch every day” done, because I know that there will be days when I don’t stretch.

Please bear in mind that these are just my opinions on what goals should be like. If you now go and take look at my list of goals, you will find out that I, too, have some ambiguous or abstract goals that do not follow these guidelines of mine.

The point is that I always consider these things before adding anything to my list. Goals like “relax” and “be more social” are good because they remind me of what I want to change in myself. The important thing with ambiguous goals like those is to write entries that make them more specific.

The conclusion for me is that most goals should be specific, measurable, realistic, etc, but it can be useful to have a couple of more abstract ones, too; as long as there aren’t too many of them.