This article points the need to address the issue of pre-service teachers’ motivation from their first year of study. It is important to preserve the positive autonomous motivation to engage in the teaching profession, but also to create the conditions to facilitate internalization processes of the teaching profession, so that the extrinsic motivations typifying some pre-service teachers become autonomous. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and its educational implications can serve as a platform to lead such processes in teacher education institutions. According to SDT, people have three innate and universal psychological needs, i.e., Autonomy, Belongingness and Competence, which are the ABC of quality motivation. Fulfillment of these needs contributes to students’ optimal development, functioning, and wellbeing.