Confidence-building is a cliché in so many enterprise programmes - a box ticked before anybody walks through the door because there is an assumption that increased confidence happens by default.
But meaningful impact comes from learners building confidence by taking action to gather evidence by embarking on - and reflecting on - a journey that requires them to experience the three things that Dr Phil Stutz states are unavoidable: hard work, pain and uncertainty.
Confidence isn't a thing you can hand someone. I have talked countless learners into showing up, pitching, networking and selling. But I didn't give them confidence, and I didn't teach it. This comes from within - from their own lived experience. In the absence of this, all talk fades, and doubt rushes back in.
Confidence isn't the input - it's the output. And it's made of one thing: evidence.
Learners back their own judgement after they have taken action, not before. We believe we can handle a setback once we've handled one. The belief always arrives second. Which means the real question isn't "How do we make students feel confident?" - it's "How do we get them taking the small, real actions that produce the evidence?"
Action first. Evidence next. Confidence last.
This order matters because it's the one everyone gets backwards. Learners always wait to feel ready before they act. Everyone is hunting for certainty before the thing that actually produces it. But you don't think your way to confidence. You act, something happens, you learn you survived it, and the belief builds from there.
The journey is the point because it is the journey where the evidence, the skills, and the feelings are made - and feelings ensure a lifetime.
The art of proactively acquiring, filtering and using feedback originates from the journey, acting as fuel to take us further and sharpening our skills to make that fuel more efficient.
The true value of what the learner walks away with is confidence built from taking action. Within this are the skills, qualities, attributes, knowledge, and understanding built through experience that can all be evidenced.