Self-confidence impacts every area of our lives. It determines how we hear others, what we think about ourselves and others, and how we react in any given situation. The way we see ourselves and the world depends on the level of self-confidence we feel deep inside.

When we are confident, we operate at our best and successfully tackle any life challenge: we can communicate better with a “difficult” customer, create a better impression during a job interview, manage conflicting situations better, and juggle all aspects of our lives, from career to personal relationships, effortlessly.

In this invigorating workshop, Maria will equip you with the tools and ideas you need to achieve greater self-confidence and self-motivation. You will learn how to use your unique strengths and achievements to achieve your goals and live a life of passion and fulfilment. The rich mix of individual and group exercises, discussions and fun activities will inject you with a renewed sense of vigour and overall optimism.

• Recognise signs of high and low self-confidence.
• Understand how we can change negative conditioning.
• Switch off the voice in your head that steals all your confidence.
• Learn valuable tools to give yourself a confidence workout.
• Recognise your unique strengths and achievements in order to achieve goals.

Content Outline

Importance of self-confidence

• Self-confidence is at the root of every success and achievement
• Signs of low and high self-confidence
• The realm of possibilities with powerful self-belief: to achieve anything if we believe in ourselves

Factors that undermine self-confidence

• Criticism by parents, teachers, siblings, and friends
• Comparisons and ‘shoulds’ from society
• The 'shoulds' from society, religion and our personal beliefs
• The negative conditioning – we can change it!

The choice of positive perspective

• Focus on our strengths and successes versus weaknesses
• The ‘life buffet’ of positive thought
• Embracing the lessons and wisdom versus the 'failure' or 'mistake'
• Being in charge of life versus feeling the 'victim' of circumstances

More tools for self-confidence

• Silencing the critical voice
• Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) goals
• The power of mistakes and gratitude
• The 5-minute daily confidence workout

• Self-confidence means appreciating your own worth and importance.
• Being confident leads to better decisions, courage to speak up, better communication, greater prospects for growth & a joy of living.
• Self-confidence does not depend on the material possessions, 5Cs, education, job. Being human entitles us to unconditional self-worth.
• Self-confidence, like a garden, needs constant daily nurturing to remain strong, blossom and endure the tests of nature.
• Choosing the positive perspectives is a key to inner power. It is not self-delusion, but an empowering attitude to face life in the driver seat.
• We can control how long we spend on our thoughts, and can choose empowering & motivating self-talk instead of the self-beating one.
• Goal getting fuels our confidence & ability to create the success we want. Don’t just set goals, make them happen through persistent action.
• STOP! the critical voice. Turn it down, make it silly. Don’t allow it to cripple you. It’s not even your own voice in the first place!
• Accept yourself as you are. Be your best friend – treat yourself with kindness, love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance. The way you treat your best friends and loved ones.
• Be patient and enjoy the confidence journey. Congratulate yourself every time you stop the critic, affirm yourself or feel grateful.

Maria Kassova is a motivational speaker, facilitator and executive coach. Her passion is to help individuals, teams and organisations achieve peak performance through confident communication, leadership and decision making. Having lived in 8 countries from the age of 6, Maria learnt that cross-cultural mastery is essential to excel in our global world.

Maria’s last corporate role was Vice-President of Sales at Discovery Networks Asia. With over 15 years of corporate experience, she knows well the challenges of increasing targets, intense competition and demanding clients.

Maria loves to encourage individuals to focus on their strengths and be the best they can be.

Maria Kassova is the founder and Director of MK Motivation. She is a Trainer and Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguisitc Programming. She is also a certified business coach and hypnotherapist. Maria holds an MBA in Business Studies from South Bank University (London), and a BA in International Economic Relations from the Sofia Economy University (Bulgaria). She speaks Bulgarian, English, French, and Russian.

Maria conducts a wide array of training programmes, including peak performance through confidence, communication mastery, assertiveness at work, creativity at work, time and stress management. Her passion to share knowledge and see the positive shifts in participants when they have ‘aha’ moments give her an enormous drive to deliver empowering workshops. Participants learn in a fun and effortless way by self-reflection, group discussions and experiential activities. Maria’s workshops are interactive, filled with group and pair discussions, individual reflections and role plays. She also uses clips and stories to illustrate the ideas and make the experience even more impactful and productive.

Maria is also a sought after international speaker and has taken part in a number of conferences in the region. Maria’s workshops range from 1 hour to 2 days. She is flexible and can tailor the material depending on the needs and requirements of her partners. She has inspiring keynote speeches on themes like “Your biggest mistake is your greatest gift”, “Your strengths pave the path for further success”, “The more we focus on our victories, the more we create new ones”.

Originally from Bulgaria and the daughter of a diplomat, Maria has lived, studied and worked in many countries, including: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and now Singapore, where she has lived since 2003. This exposure has made her particularly open to and skilled at connecting with people of all nationalities and faiths, and she brings this sensitivity to her workshops and coaching sessions in the corporate and non-profit arenas alike.

A strong believer in the abundant capabilities of human beings, Maria has always been a natural nurturer in all the jobs that she has done. She coached and trained a sales team of 10 people in Ghana (1991-1993) where she worked for 3 years as a Sales and Marketing manager for the company bottling Schweppes.

In 1996 Maria embarked on a career in media. She has worked in BBC Worldwide and Discovery Networks Europe - based in London. In 2003 she was promoted to Vice-President of Affiliate Sales for Discovery Networks Asia and transferred to Singapore. This experience enables Maria to relate to the corporate pressures and challenges that her clients and workshop participants face on a daily basis.

Maria’s biggest lesson was that providing true nurturing, leadership, support for and training of people in the company is the only real gateway to long-lasting competitiveness and market leadership. During her tenure at Discovery, the heart of her role was to coach a multi-ethnic team of people (6 people) to build on their strengths and deliver extraordinary performances.