Confidence is relative.

As a person grows from childhood into an adult life, confidence generally grows as a person realizes their capabilities.

Flying is something that many people find empowering. Much like driving a car, they're doing something they haven't done before, and begin to realize that what was once obscure or what seemed difficult is something that they really can do.

When I taught my daughter to drive, at first she cried, and said "I can't do this." Soon, like everyone, she realized that she could, and what had seemed insurmountable became second nature. Flying is the same way; it's an extension of the learning curve we experienced learning to ride a bicycle. Impossible at first, and soon we looked back on it as nothing at all.

I don't know that it's a change in personal confidence so much as it is slaying dragons. That big 800 pound gorilla in the room gets a lot smaller once we begin to understand it, once we realize we really can do it, and we look to other challenges.

I knew a physics professor whose greatest frustration in life was opening one of the clear plastic baggies at the produce section of the grocery store. It's all relative.