The average male marathon runner finishes their race in 4 hours and 22 minutes, and the average female finishes in 4 hours and 47 minutes.But some odd data emerges when researchers chart the finishing times of millions of runners over several decades.A lot more people finish the race at 3:59 than 4:01. Why? When runners are close to an arbitrary goal, they push themselves at the end of the race to finish a few seconds earlier.The same pattern exists at 3:30, 4:30, 5:00, etc. And to a lesser extent, the pattern shows up in 10-minutes increments, as well.It’s no secret that many of us are motived by setting small goals and deadlines to help us stay on track.But surprisingly, these goals can be arbitrary and still produce a motivational affect.This is a great recruiting hack if you’re trying to find the motivation to uptick your performance.You could participate in a self-talk conversation like this:My goal is to initiate 10 proactive recruiting outreaches per day, but could I get a dozen if I pushed a little harder?If I can get a dozen, could I hit 15 at least once a week?Before long, you may talk yourself into being a high-performing recruiter.