Anicka Newell

A New Attitude

By Kreager Taber

Canadian vaulter Anicka Newell is no stranger to the mental challenges of pole vaulting. After training and competing for four years without a new personal best, she shifted gears and focused on improving her attitude in addition to her vaulting technique. Her new outlook has already pushed her higher. Anicka kicked off 2021 with a win at the Expo Explosion in Texas, a clearance of 4.70 meters, a new personal best, and the Olympic “A” standard.

Over a phone call, I spoke with Anicka about her new mindset and the barriers she overcame to clear her recent personal record.

“I’ve always believed that your worst enemy is what lies between your two ears,” Anicka stated. “For me that’s been such a struggle, and this year, I feel like I’m finally unleashing the beast.”

Anicka explained that she developed this new outlook after a chat with her coach, Brookelyn Dickson Mehrman.

“I’m pretty awful to deal with at practices, and the type of person to throw poles, throw tantrums, yell, scream, the whole nine yards,” she explained, laughing. “Going into this year, my coach and I had a long conversation, and the gist of it was that I have to stop being such a brat. Otherwise, I’m not going to go anywhere.”

They decided to create a new system, in which Anicka receives a sticker every day that she has a good attitude at practice. These stickers are added to a handmade poster that hangs on the wall of the gym, and serve as a visual aid to remind her to keep a positive attitude as she works through frustrating moments.

“I have not gone a day where I haven’t gotten a sticker,” she said. “Having a whole attitude flip this year, and just being way more positive at practice and easier to handle for my coaches and the couple of people who train with me, it’s making such a huge difference. I feel like that’s translating hugely into the way that I’m vaulting, because I’m throwing up so much positivity in the air that it’s transferring straight to my jump. That’s been the biggest thing for me this year- just not holding myself back.”

This system has not kept her from feeling upset during practices, but it has encouraged her to express what’s going on in her head and to develop a plan to work through the stress. She described one practice that had her so frustrated that she was worried she wouldn’t earn a sticker for the day. Instead of letting the negative feelings ruin the session, she took a moment to breathe, reflect on the things that she had been working on and how she could fix the situation. She walked back into the gym once she was calm and asked, “Ok, Coach. What’s our strategy? What do we do next? Where do we go from here?” They decided on the best course of action to finish on a high note, and Anicka remembers, “we changed things up and I had a great day.”

In addition to using the stickers, Anicka loves doing visualization exercises to think through good and bad vaults. She reads books about mentality. Anicka says that she’s felt clear-headed going into competitions this year and has found a unique way to snap out of negative thoughts.

Anicka Newell

“One of my favorite little tactics has been putting a hair tie on my wrist, and if I’m in practice or a competition and having a negative thought at all, I take the hair tie off,” she explained. “I replace the negative thought with a positive one, that somehow correlates to what I’m thinking about, and I put the hair tie on the other wrist. That alleviates that negative thought and puts it away.”

I asked if she had ever doubted herself and her ability to improve during the four years that she trained and competed without jumping a new personal best.

“So many people have told me ‘you have potential.’ I hate the ‘p-word’ because a lot of people have potential. I get it. I want to have progress. I want to put points on the board, I don’t want to just have the p-word,” she stated. “I think you’re not human if you don’t doubt yourself at some point in your life. There were times, especially when I was injured, where I thought that the stupid ‘p-word’ is wasted on me. That I’m going to have to hang it up and leave the sport feeling like I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to.”

Those difficult four years taught her that the brain is a muscle, and “you have to train it like you train the other muscles in your body.” When asked what advice she would give to other vaulters in a similar situation, she said to remember that personal bests are not the only measure of improvement.

“Keep fighting. As long as you actually want it, don’t give up on it and don’t stop fighting for it. The second that it’s not worth it anymore, hang it up, but until that day, don’t stop,” she urged. “If you’re just having small improvements here and there, we call them ‘pequeñas victorias’ or small wins, then it’s a good freaking day and that is improvement.”

Anicka’s new mindset clearly demonstrates that a vaulter’s attitude can dictate their altitude. We wish her the best of luck in her future competitions and cannot wait to see her positive attitude push her to new heights.

Anicka Newell

Photos provided by Anicka Newell.