Becoming Intrinsically Motivated to Recruit

by | Oct 31, 2025

Your brain works best when it’s intrinsically motivated.

But most recruiting tasks are extrinsically forced upon you.

Either you’re mustering your own external motivation (I must recruit to stay in business), or others in your organization are providing the motivation (My boss is telling me I have to recruit).

According to Harvard researchers, this puts you in a tough spot.

At our jobs, we will inevitably face activities that don’t naturally interest us or that we perceive as boring, irrelevant, uncomfortable, or too difficult.

If we don’t figure out how to turn these activities into interesting and challenging problems to solve, we’ll struggle to complete tasks in a timely and reliable manner, sabotaging our own success and growth at work.

How do you convert your recruiting responsibilities into tasks you feel internally motivated to accomplish?

Here are three mindset hacks to help you feel more intrinsically motivated when recruiting:

Reconnect to the bigger picture.I’m guessing you’re intrinsically motivated to succeed in your current role.   When you start a recruiting time block, remind yourself of the contribution recruiting makes to that success.

Perform easy tasks right away. Collect some easy wins in your recruiting time block.  When you check items off your to-do lists, feel-good hormones are released in your brain. This makes you feel accomplished, which makes the task more interesting and rewarding, which in turn, makes you more motivated to do it.

Avoid too much repetition. Make a few calls then switch tactics and send a few texts.  Prospect for a while, then reach out to your agents or influencers and ask for referrals.

By switching tasks frequently, your tasks will feel more interesting.

Of course, there will also be times when you just need to muscle through the tasks.

But that can’t be your only tactic if you want to win in the long run.

Intrinsic motivation is powerful, and it’s worth tapping into.

 

The Simple Psychology of Real Estate Recruiting [2nd Edition]

Unlock the secrets of effective real estate recruiting. Revised to include actionable frameworks for sharper execution and to help you turn psychological theory into a repeatable recruiting system.

The Library Effect

The Library Effect

The Library Effect is something you can easily apply to recruiting, and it’s one of the reasons that accountability groups are so effective.

Just getting together with other hiring managers and recruiting for a set period of time each week will short-circuit many of your recruiting excuses.