Some times I see people have what seem to me to be unrealistic goals, like losing 25 lbs in 5 weeks. I mean, sure, most of us would like to do that, but I think that we also know that most of the time, that's not usually that realistic.
Personally, I tend to pick time based goals on the fairly conservative side - so even if I know I'm averaging 2 lbs a week, I'll make my goal about 1.5 lbs a week. That's to give a cushion in case I stall a bit, but also because I tend to prefer to meet or even exceed a goal rather than fall short.
But then I wonder whether I'm challenging myself enough. Maybe I would do better if I made the goal something that I had to work harder to try to achieve? Of course, there is no guarantee that harder work necessarily turns into a bigger loss on the scale....
If you set short term, time-based goals, how do you decide on them? And how do you feel if you fail to achieve them?