This study has theoretical significance. First, by adopting a phenomenological approach, I was able to shed light on pre-service English teachers’ social, cognitive, emotional, and motivational experiences. As a result, there emerged a holistic perspective of their sense of identity, and consequently, motivational processes. This also proved the importance of the emotional dimension of prospective English teachers’ motivation, which has been neglected by prior research on the topic in question. Second, it became clear that pre-service English teachers’ motivation is more complex than prior empirical research has shown (e.g., Bosnyák & Gáncs, 2012; Doró, 2020; Erten, 2015; Gu & Lai, 2012; Kavanoz & Yüksel, 2017; Kyriacou & Kobori, 1998; Topkaya & Uztosun, 2012; Tustiawati, 2017). The previously unrecognized aspect of their motivation was conceptualized as executive motivation in that it concerns a person’s commitment to being a prospective English teacher (Dörnyei & Ottó, 1998). There emerged several, thus far unidentified constructs, pertaining to Hungarian pre-service English teachers’ executive motivation, namely, autonomy, self-regulation, attitudes toward the instructional environment, and various facets of one’s sense of competence as a prospective English teacher. Third, the results showed that the different aspects of pre-service English teachers’ choice motivation and executive motivation are interconnected. Moreover, it was found that career intention and extracurricular L2 use, which are potentially important indicators of choice motivation and executive motivation, respectively, can be predicted by a number of variables, including those representative of an individual’s sense of L2 competence and attitudes toward the learning situation.