This interactive Lab helps trainees learn how to receive, interpret and act on developmental feedback without allowing every review note to become a verdict on their professional potential.
Drawing on positive psychology, coaching and trainee-development principles, the session explores the important space between:

What was said → What I heard → What I made it mean → What I do next

During a realistic trainee scenario, participants will practise separating facts from interpretation, regulating their initial emotional response, identifying the real development message and turning feedback into practical action.

The Lab also explores self-efficacy, growth mindset, strengths, resilience and self-compassion—not as ways of avoiding accountability, but as psychological resources that can help trainees stay open to learning when feedback is uncomfortable.

What will trainees walk away with?

• The CLEAR Feedback Tool
• A Personal Confidence Trigger Map: greater awareness of the types of feedback or situations most likely to affect their confidence and how they typically respond.
• A Competence Evidence Bank: evidence of previous growth, capability and mastery to draw on when confidence temporarily dips.
• Practical clarification questions they can use with reviewers and managers when feedback is vague or they are unsure what “better” should look like.
• An If–Then Plan for responding constructively when difficult feedback triggers self-doubt, defensiveness or overthinking.
• A healthier distinction between accountability and self-criticism; learning to acknowledge mistakes without allowing one mistake to define professional identity.
• A short evidence-capture reflection to help translate the Lab into ongoing workplace development.

Why this matters

Professional confidence is not built by receiving fewer review notes.

It develops through learning how to use feedback well, recognise genuine progress, adapt when something is not working, seek clarification and return to the task with a better strategy.

The aim is therefore not to create trainees who are unaffected by feedback.

It is to develop trainees who can say:

“This feedback may be uncomfortable, but I can understand it, learn from it and decide what I need to do next.”

Feedback should influence what you do next; not determine how much you believe you are worth.