Goals come in all shapes and sizes. Life goals, year-end goals, New Year’s resolutions, Quarterly targets, and so on. A common approach to goal setting is:
- Step 1: Define end goal
- Step 2: Enumerate the steps needed to achieve that goal
- Step 3: Perform the steps that were identified
- (Hopefully) achieve the goal
This simple flowchart illustrates this:

In computer programming, when you define the actions step by step until you reach your desired state, it is called imperative programming. As this same concept is evident in the diagram above, we can call this Imperative Goal Setting. When your plan consists of executing specific steps and actions, then your plan is imperative.