In response to the global imperative of nurturing all-round students, educational institutions and schools worldwide have been developing learning activities targeting holistic competency development of students. However, there have been resistance and challenges on how to develop such competencies. Extending the Presage-Process-Product (3P) framework to holistic competency development, this study examined the relationship between students' motivation, perception, their approach to develop, and learning outcomes in those activities. To that end, 329 secondary-school students who participated in a school-based initiative to enhance holistic competencies responded to pre- and post- programme questionnaires regarding the aforementioned four constructs. Descriptive statistics, measurement modelling, and structural equation modelling analyses supported that learners who are more driven by self-directed motives such as enjoyment and friendship building perceive the learning activities more positively, and thus, engenders higher level of engagement which in turn enhances holistic competency development.