When I was little, my sister had a birthday party at a painted pottery shop near our house. I started to paint flowers on a ceramic jewelry box and then, I messed up. I was about to start all over again but the shop owner stopped me. She took my box and turned the smudge into a pretty flower.

“There are no mistakes in art,” she said.

Her words have stuck with me more than 20 years later. Whenever I’m designing something or writing and I start stressing out about it being *bad*, I remind myself that it can be transformed into something else. That’s the beauty of creating something from scratch: You have the power to make it whatever you want it to be.

Some of my best designs for smoothie bowls come from mistakes. I start with a plan but then I screw up the seeds on top or a strawberry sinks to the bottom of the bowl, and I end up improvising.

That didn’t happen in the case of this symmetrical strawberry mango smoothie bowl. Still, I replayed the shop owner’s words as I executed the design. Her words relaxed me and helped me concentrate. It’s easier to put the berries or seeds on top if you’re not worried about making a mistake.

A word to the wise: Consider putting chia seeds and flax seed into small, shallow bowls before you start laying your design on top. It’s annoying to keep reaching in a big bag and some of the seeds can stick to your fingers and end up scattering all over the bowl. If you’re going for precision, that gets irritating very quickly.

Don’t stress if you screw things up. Like I said before, the symmetrical smoothie bowl of your dreams is still attainable, even if it doesn’t look exactly like what you’d imagined. I know this sounds like a metaphor for life…maybe because it is.

Here’s a song that I’ve been jamming out to this morning. It’s also good for making and enjoying symmetrical smoothie bowls.

Symmetrical Strawberry Mango Smoothie Bowl (from me, to you)

Ingredients

1/2 cup frozen mango
1/2 cup sliced strawberries
1 banana
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
chia seeds, sliced strawberries, and Trader Joe’s seed mix for topping

Directions

Blend the mango, strawberries, banana, yogurt, and almond milk in a blender on high until smooth. Top with the chia seeds, sliced strawberries, and seed mix. Don’t stress the mistakes. Enjoy!