Alicia Keys is blowing the lid off of traditional wellness goals. While everyone else is setting firm resolutions, her intentions are masterfully laid out on a handmade vision board, with words like “transformation/freedom” written over colorful magazine cutouts in bright blue marker. “The whole goal thing feels overwhelming sometimes because you feel like you’re supposed to make these big, huge promises to yourself,” Keys tells POPSUGAR. She makes the annual reset more manageable by choosing a singular word or concept to focus on instead.
“My affirmation of my whole lifetime is: ‘I surround myself with things that are good for me,'” she says, noting that the words may sound simple, but they’re often harder in practice. “Making the conscious effort to get closer to the things that feel good to you and farther away from the things that don’t – that’s an amazing way to do the goal-making process without it feeling so heavy.”
For 2024 specifically, Keys keeps coming back to the term “fearlessness,” reminding herself to just go for what she wants. “I think that so many times you can get caught up in your head,” she says. “You start to think about all the reasons why things won’t work for you, or you think about the things that you don’t feel so confident about, and so you become full of fear, and you stop before you even start.”
In the spirit of taking chances and choosing things that feel good, Keys is launching a new activewear collection with Athleta, designed to inspire mindful movement and help women step into their goddess energy. “I feel like our feminine power is something that we don’t often get connected to,” Keys says. “I definitely have become more connected to my feminine power and [I’ve] realized just how strong that is, just how unstoppable that is, how powerful that is.”
The collection doesn’t have its own vision board (at least not that we know of), but Keys still has a few ideas for what she envisions. She’d start with birds flying to represent freedom of expression. She’d also add a few cuddly creatures as a nod to the comfortable material, a goddess to signify regality, and an open jar to manifest unrestrained power. “I think a lot of times we feel like we have to contain ourselves in a way,” Keys says. “I love the idea of getting in touch with our feminine power so we can express not putting the lid on ourselves.”
Building off this power, every item in the collection is meant to be something you feel confident wearing before and after your workout. “I get up in the morning, I might jump into my meditation, then I have to hurry up and wake up Egypt [her oldest son], who takes 100 years to get up,” Keys laughs. From there, it’s time to drop off her youngest son, Genesis, and hit the gym for a quick workout. “I can only get dressed once, so I want to wear what’s going to handle all of that,” she says. “That’s what I love about this collection, that I can literally handle all those things in the same look and feel great but comfortable, cozy, powerful, [and] elegant in an effortless way.”
“We’re so beautiful in all the different ways we come.”
Beyond versatility, Keys says body diversity was another major focus of the collab, with styles made to honor curves. “I know so many people who feel like they can’t find themselves at the store. It’s really frustrating to go shopping or to order something online and you love it, but it won’t fit you,” she says. “Me too, I can never find the right cut of jean, or it doesn’t quite fit – it fits me good up top, but then it doesn’t work on the bottom.” Keys emphasizes that creating an empowering line of activewear means designing clothes all women can feel good about themselves in.
“We’re so beautiful in all the different ways we come, we have so much beauty to offer,” she says. “Maybe we’re making that our collective mantra in 2024 . . . our collective goal is to remind ourselves that we are so perfect as we are.”
“That is embracing our feminine power.”
