In the creator economy, the first few seconds of a short-form video can increase chances of higher engagement. This exploratory study analyzed 80 short-form motivational videos of four Myanmar TikTok influencers to examine how the opening hook style impacted on the engagement rate in these clips. In detail, the sample equally contained 20 of the most recent eligible clips from each of the four influencers, each having over one million followers on TikTok. Based on previous theories, five hook categories were coded using strict rules. Moreover, the researcher investigated which hooks were associated with higher engagement rates than direct informational hooks after adding control variables. The findings showed that the opening hook style of short-form motivational TikTok videos had significant influence on the engagement rate. Among five hook styles, Games-Howell post hoc test showed that the curiosity and pain-point hooks increased higher engagement than direct informational content. Additionally, multiple regression uncovered that the curiosity hooks outperformed direct informational hooks while controlling video length, subtitle presence and face visibility. In fact, the results conclude that the virality of short-form TikTok motivational videos relies on curiosity-driven hook style which can stimulate arousal among viewers. Moreover, this study provides practical recommendations for content creators to incorporate psychological phrases which plant a desire for more data among the audience rather than empathetic, valuable, narrative and contradictory framings.