You Don’t Pass the Test—You Become the Person Who Does

Lucy passed.

And no—it wasn’t luck.

Somewhere along the way, she stopped studying for a test… and started becoming the kind of person who doesn’t miss.

This episode is about that shift.

Because this isn’t just about passing an exam—it’s about identity. It’s about discipline. It’s about the quiet reps no one sees and the moments no one claps for… that change everything.

I’m walking you through two real stories that prove the point:
 → The transformation of the Centre College Softball Team and what happens when a team decides who they are before they ever step on the field
 → Lucy’s journey from not knowing PMP terminology… to passing one of the toughest exams in her field

And here’s what both of those stories have in common:

It wasn’t talent.
It wasn’t luck.
It was identity.

In this episode, we get into:

•  Why you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your identity 
•  How discipline creates self-trust (and why that matters more than confidence) 
•  The role your nervous system plays in performance 
•  Why perfection is actually the thing holding you back 
•  What it really means to be “in the business of yourself” 

Because when you reach the point where you can honestly say,
 “There’s nothing more I could have done…”

That’s when the outcome doesn’t own you anymore.

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Transcript

– Welcome Back to The FitZen Project

Speaker 0:03

Hi! Welcome back to the FitZen' Project. I'm your host, Rachel Fitzpatrick, and I am so excited that you are here with me today. So thank you very much for tuning in and seeing what's up and doing this weekly thing with me. You know what means the world to me that you do that, that you want to tune in to the FitZen project. We've been going on for a year now. I've got like 52 episodes plus of content to choose from. So it's all about energy management and conscious leadership and embodiment and tools like yoga my fave. As how to get you from point A to point B on purpose. And not losing your purpose. Not burning out, not playing small, not being somebody that you aren't. Your authentic self first. That's it. That is it. That is the FitZen Project. Literally fits it all day long. So welcome. Thank you for coming in, for believing, and staying with the journey. I want to give some love first to some people and humans, brands that I trust. And first off, it's Rage Create. Look at this. Like I have Rage Create all over my desk. I've got their pads. I've got their calendar. It looks like a little Rolodex. It's awesome. It is just much, it's just so much fun for me to look at and remind myself every single day that I have unlimited potential and I can live in this place of possibility at all times. And I just have to dive in and find what it is that that means for me today and every single day to get to the end game. The thing that I want the most, the thing that I'm manifesting for this one big, bold, beautiful life. I use Rage Create to get me there all the time. I even color with my son on their adult uh coloring books because you know what? It's so much fun. And it's like my own meditation in a sense. So anyway, I can talk about them all day, every day. And my next favorite I want to give a big shout out to is Life Form Yoga Mats. I use them. I've let me just tell you, I've gone through brand after brand after brand in yoga. And I have done hot yoga, I've done yin yoga, I've done everything except goat yoga because that's gross. Not doing, you will not catch me doing goat yoga. It's disgusting. So anyway, no um, no judgment or shade to people that love it and think that's cute. It's just not cute to me. I just don't, and I don't I don't love it. I'm not even offended that you do it if you do it. But anyway, enough about that. Lifeform yoga mats, you're not gonna slip and slide and move all around, and then they're awesome. Um, and they're beautiful, and you can custom your own, customize your own. And for both of those, lifeform and for rage create, when you check out, use code FitZen and you'll get 20% off. So anyway, I did what I did. Let's get into the beef of today. So come with me on this journey, all right. This has been such a fun, fun journey. I've got two things I want to celebrate today, and I'm celebrating, and they're big, big, big milestones, not only for myself as a coach and a leader, but for the people who attained the accomplishments. Okay. This is such a big deal. Um, I know the the tools, the modalities, and all of the tactics to use to get you to be a successful person, right? Like I've done them, you know. I did the hustle game for a long, long time and burnt myself out. And I thought that that was the way to be. And then I went into yoga teacher training and still kind of teetered on that hustle work and hustle, blah, blah, blah, until I had my son. And my son was the one who taught me that life isn't about the hustle at all, actually. It's about all the moments in between and the tiny moments and the moments behind the scenes that nobody uh gives you an applause for. They're not gonna give you an award for being your best self when you are your best self at all times, and you're standing in this energy. And that's um something I really want to hone in on today because the work that I've seen these people do over the past, let's say, what are we in? We're in May. So the past four to five months has been um amazing to say the least. So I've got two different story sets. And my first story set, I want to give a big shout out to Center College. Center College softball team. Their coach has been in and out of my yoga classes here in our local community for a few years now. She understands like my modality isn't just teaching a yoga class. I'm not here to just teach you how to go from a downward-facing dog to warrior one. No, there's a whole lot of depth to me and what I bring into class. And that's what everybody gets to experience when they come to my class, is the depth part, not just someone's telling me what to do. Because you can do all the things all the time, but until you're in the depth and the energy of what I'm actually teaching, it's not gonna hit. It's not gonna resonate. And you're not gonna understand what it's actually doing to the body. And that's what I'm bringing, like literally every single time I turn around. And I don't know another way. And I and that's just the fact of the matter. I don't know another way to show up. So my friend Coach Laura, she comes and she's like, I really want uh my girls to do yoga, but I'd also like for you to do some mindset coaching. And I'm like, really? And this was when I was working with my made my magic maker coach on how to implement my new self and be in the energy of me. So I think it was the energy that I was in that was attracting the energy of Laura to come to me to be like, I need this for my girls. And I will tell you all day, every day, when I'm you're working with an energy coach, you're working with all of that, it's gonna come to you like lightning bolts all day, every single day. So, with that, I was working with Dana Hunter Fordella. Gotta give her a beautiful shout out. And then Coach V came up to me and she wanted me to start this with the center girls. So I did. And I'll tell you what the scoreboard obviously kept the scores between Center Girls and their softball team and what they were doing on the field. But the energy shift was that subtle acknowledgement and knowing in between games and how they showed up for each other in their practices, how they showed up for each other on their way trips, and how they showed up for each other every single time they may have messed up, or every single time they came and conquered all things. So we um went from winning four games last year when before I came along, and this year they had won 14 games and I think they ended winning their last two, so all in all, 16. They didn't make it to their conference, but they went from four games in a winning a year in a year to sixteen. Now tell me the proof isn't in the pudding on the scoreboard. But also what that did, it wasn't I'm gonna go win these games. It's who they decided to be when they walked out on the field. It's the shoes that they stepped in and they gained a new perspective and shifted their perspective when they came out on the field together. And they tried. They tried really hard and they had a whole lot of heart. One of the things, one of the biggest takeaways was their coach said to me, This was a successful year because another coach came to them and said, What I see in this team, I don't see in other teams, and that's just that they have a lot of heart and they refused to lose, like lay down and lose. They tried and they gave it their all. And that was the biggest compliment that I've ever received or heard in my life as to how that was a big success for their journey. And I've I felt that and I took ownership in that as well because I was part of that team and am and still in that energy, right? And it was their identity that came into play. And that's what I think we miss when we expect these skill sets to be like you can bat at whatever average you your batting average is, or you can throw a ball at whatever speed, or you've got however many assists and outs and whatever. Yeah, those are great stats. But things that don't get numbers, they those softer moments that don't get the numbers and the performance, those are the things that I come in for. Those are the things that I notice, that I live for, that I want to see the depth show up in and out of all things. Like it's the inside of the 3D moment, that 4D, that 5D energy shift, you know, where your soul's aligned, where you're aligned in your soul, where you can feel that full open from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, open energy lanes. And that's what we create. It's what was created together. And I loved that team so much, and I loved working with them so much, and it was so funny because like they thought I was coming in to teach them yoga, and I did because like their first day of yoga was hilarious and so terrible. They were all so bad at it. It was like they were laughing at themselves, and I was also laughing at them because they were just so bad at it. Because it was it was funny, is it's like you're a bunch of like 18 to 21-year-olds, and you're like having a problem touching your toes and bending over, and and I'm like almost 40, and I can, and I'm not making near as many complaints as you are. I'm like, oh my gosh, you all don't even know the power of your body, of your own body. You don't even know. So now they do, now they've got a little bit of taste, and it's so incredibly awesome to be a witness because our last yoga class together was last week, and we were dancing and doing yoga, like dancing on one foot, and one of the girls was like, I can get down with this, you know, and it was just so much fun, and like they came to have a good time, and then they finished their season with 10-0. Like they won their game 10 to nothing on one of their games. So, anyway, shout out to my center softball girls, they were phenomenal. It was such a blast to get to be with you, to get to shed some light on your own energy and your potential. And you are all so full of beautiful things that come in your way and so much possibility. Oh my gosh, I just I'm really, really honored that I got to be part of that. It was it was exceptional. So my next story, I want to kick it over to my professional life and um how I've mixed in my professional life with my um passions. And of course, I do that anyway with this podcast. I've been doing that, I've been showing up, and I told y'all not too long ago that I was about to start making my clients everywhere, and they are everywhere. And this is one that I will never forget. Um, one of my favorite leaders and my company comes up to me. She is my absolutely favorite leader. She's not one of them. She is my favorite. She comes up to me and she's like, Can you mentor one of this girl's um, my daughter's best friend, and she would love to learn project management. She's coordinator here, and she would like to learn about her PMP and take her P and P exam. And she's younger, she's like in her middle middle 20s, and I'm like, sure, you know, like this is a profession that a lot of people um you either know it and can do it, and you're in it, or you don't, or you know it and you can't do it, and you're sort of kind of in it. It will make her, ah, that's not really the words. It doesn't really make or break you. That's where I was going with that thought. But project management is not just you telling a bunch of people what to do, it's holding the space for things to be done and creating time when there's not time. And it's creating um deliverables and staying in the know of where you are in your present moment at all times. I think that's why I really love it, because you have to be present in your projects so you know exactly what is next, what is coming, where you've been. And you can make moves to continue to improve. And you know if the resourcing is not there, what will happen. You know if things are not aligned, what is going on now. And you know, when things are aligned and when resources do appear, you know, you know, you know, you know that it's gonna be great. So I love project management because I'm not sticking with the same thing over and over again. I'm meeting new people all the time. And I am not a maintenance girl. I'm a let's start, let's execute, let's finish. That is me. That is my exactly how I operate. Like we've got a we got a job to do and we're gonna do it beautifully, and this is how we're gonna finesse all the way through and make it look like grace. And that's it. And it does, and it feels like grace because it's so much fun. So I had um my friend Lucy, I'm just gonna give her a name away. My friend Lucy comes up and she's like, Yes, I'd love to learn project management. I don't really know much about it, but I'm doing projects like right now. I came from a company that did projects and I was a coordinator for them. So she knew a little bit of terminology, but not a lot. So I created this plan for her. And man, she knocked it out of the park. She did all the things, X, Y, Z. And she got the 35 hours, she did the um application for the exam. And then it was all right, take a mock exam. Let's see what you know. So she took her first mock exam, and it was um pretty terrible. I think she got like 40 something, I don't know. And I was like, don't worry, this is just a baseline, right? You gotta know where you are so you can know where you're going. So we did a whole lot of learning together, and it's wonderful for me because I get to refresh on my P skills and I love it. So it's a gain for me, but it's also a gain for me because it was so cool seeing someone so coachable pick it up and run with it and be the actual embodiment of what it takes to be a project manager while working her full-time job, while traveling, because she's in the age where all of her friends are going and they're doing things and they're traveling together, they're doing bachelorette parties, they're doing weddings, they're doing all sorts of things together all the time. And she's making this a commitment. Now, I'm giving her all the kudos in the world because she showed up. She showed up for herself and for all of it. And it was those like quiet reps that I didn't even see that she was doing. And I'm so proud of her because to be able to pass this exam, you don't just get to go in and memorize a bunch of stuff and boom, you've passed the exam. This exam is one that has like a, I don't know, a 60% pass rate. I think of all the people that take it, 60% may pass. So it's made to be tough. It's made to be a little bit difficult, but it's not luck. You can't go in and pass it on luck. No. You you go in and you pass this exam because you're in alignment. Because you've done the work to get there, you've done the repetition to get there, and you have that self-trust to get there because you created the self-trust by creating the discipline. And when you created the discipline, you reset your nervous system to learn I'm in a safe place, I am learning something new, and your nervous system's not freaking out about what is erasy. Your nervous system's not freaking out about making a communications plan and how it rolls up into your full project plan or your scope and your charter and all of these like fun buzzwords that we use here in project management. So she set the tone in her nervous system. She set the tone with her discipline, and she set the tone with that self-trust from jump street. We wrote out statements at the very beginning, which was really cool. Which was, what do you want? Why do you want this? What do you think this PMP exam is going to do for you in your career? Like, where do you see yourself literally in five years? And what kind of person do you want to be? What are you wearing? Who are you working for? What do you smell? Who are you around? Who's your best friend? What do they do? Do you wake up every morning and you're excited about your day? Or is it I'm rolling out of bed and throwing my hair up in a bun and just gonna move through to go back to bed? Yeah. It's that visionary that you put yourself in. And when you can see it, once you can see it, then it's yours because it's you're able to identify the vision with your senses, right? Like you're able to identify your touch, taste, smell, what you're seeing, what you're hearing, who you're around. You know, one of the things about um habits and like being in the business of yourself is like the people that you hang out with the most and their energies are yours too. If you hang out with a bunch of five idiots, you're gonna be the sixth idiot. You hang out with five smart, successful people, you'll be the sixth smart, successful person. And that's just the way the universe is gonna be. That's just the way it lines up. You wanna be smart and successful and going about your business, you're going to have to align With the people that do it for themselves too. And that's what Lucy set the bar, man. She set the bar for her friends as well. And now they will come up and match her, or they won't. And that's how it will go. So she's made all of this in her mind and her mind's eye and saw all of this, like from jump street. And that's how she set her nervous system. That's how she set that self-trust from the beginning. And then from that repetition and the discipline over and over and over. When no one else was watching, what was she doing? She was studying. When no one else was there to give her a pat on the back or an at a girl, she was studying. When her roommate was out of town, she was home taking mock exams and studying. It's not luck that people pass this exam. It's alignment. And the whole identity shift here is being someone who shows up prepared. Her words, not mine. I think I've studied as much as I possibly can. I know as much as I possibly can. I'm ready to take this exam. There's not much more I could possibly do. And those words, right there, that's when I knew. I was like, yeah, well, you're going to pass it then. I have zero doubt you're going to pass it. You know, without a shadow of a doubt, that there's not anything else you could possibly do. There's no more time that you could possibly give to this. It's either going to be or it's not. Then you've given it up. You've given up the outcome because you don't care. It's not and it's not, okay, you do care. It's not that you don't care, but the outcome isn't a choice for you to make from the beginning anyway. That's not up to you. The outcome's not up to you. But when you decide to let it go and you embody what you already know you are, that's when you know you make it. That's when you know you're gonna make it without a shadow of a doubt. When you can literally say, there's nothing else I can do to prepare for this exam, I've done the most, then the outcome isn't even on your radar anymore. The only thing that's on your radar is I just want to take this test and be done. That is it. And that is what she did. Yeah, that is exactly what she did. It was like she borrowed the belief before she fully had it to begin with, and then she acted on it, and then she embodied it, and then she was just like, I don't even care anymore. I'm so done. And then she passed. She passed. She is a pimp, she's got her PMP now. Oh my gosh, it's so exciting! It's so exciting to watch someone go from zero, not knowing many words of the PMP terminology, to passing in like a four to five month span. We worked together. It was such it's liberating, and she just opened so many doors for herself because she's now got a step further in a career that's already kind of hard to even get in anyway, and she's doing it mid-twenties. Like, man, I admire her so much. So much. She's exemplary, man. And I think what is very cool is that emotional regulation that she had, like there wasn't real anxiety coming out from her in right before the exam. It was just like I needed to be, I just want to take it, I want to be done. I'm done. I've got my life to live. I'm over it. I've done as much as I possibly can. And that's where a lot of people miss. I do believe. It's where a lot of people miss is yeah, you can take the action, you can get inspired, you can do all of the things and then take the action, but then you want to perfect it, perfect it, perfect it, and kind of squeeze the life out of it to just miss and never do it. Or you just take the action, you let it fall as it falls, and that's what Lucy did. She wasn't all caught up about the outcome. There wasn't like anything laying on the line. She made a plan, she took inspired action, she saw herself, visualized herself as being the person she aspired to be, and she did it. She took the time and no one else did. No one else took her time but her. So I applaud you, Lucy Johnson. I think that is one of the coolest things I've definitely seen in 2026. And honestly, probably my whole career is made now. It I I don't even have the words for for how great this feels to help somebody pass this exam. Like, I don't even have the words because it was in my radar like two years ago to be a coach for the PMP exam. And I've always wanted to help people pass this exam and work towards this because it's a great profession and I love teaching and I love being in the business of it all, but I never took like the inspired action to go and put my services out to say, hey, I can do this with you if you're interested. Here we go. Let's do it. So I have um someone who came to me out of the clear blue sky and wanted me to coach them, and I did. And wow, I'm so freaking impressed. So congratulations, Lucy, for um becoming the kind of person who doesn't miss and no, it wasn't luck that got you here or anything like that at all. It was you stepped into this, into this new portal, into this identity. And I couldn't be more proud of you. So congratulations. All right. So if this episode slaps for you, why don't you go ahead and share it with a friend? Share it with someone who you know needs to step into that identity shift. Or if you know somebody who wants to get their PMP exam, why don't you have them reach out to me? Why don't you put that out there for me? And I will gladly set them up the same way I did with Lucy. Or if you know a team that would like some yoga and mindset, I would also gladly help with that too. So those are my offers. Those are the things that I've got going right now. And if you want to be part of the fits and community, just go to the show notes and sign up for that precious email subscription. Because that, my friends, that is where you get a message from me right to your inbox every single week. And I do giveaways and I do all sorts of fun stuff in there. I tell you stories about my life that you don't hear on social media or the podcast ever. So it's just special things that I will drop to my community through email. So I'd love to have you. And if you know someone who would love to be part of it, why don't you go ahead and send them this episode too? So, all right, y'all. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Happy, happy, happy May, and oh, a big congratulations to Sherry DeVault, the first woman trainer of the Kentucky Derby who won over the last weekend. Man, I watched that and her video and I cried. Just it was so touching. So a lot of wins. A lot of wins this weekend. Alright, y'all. I'm gonna end this one with a beautiful um. Remember, you are your most important project. Have a good one.