If you are looking for a quirky, fresh, quick to binge series to get you in the mood for Christmas, I would recommend Dash and Lily!

Based on a book by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, this is a novel take on romance when two teenagers start writing to each other in a notebook which is left around New York. What I absolutely love though is the fact they dare each other to try and do and experience things, whether that is different foods, dancing as if no-one is watching, or getting their zen on whilst making mochi. They invite the other into their world and each grows and develops as a result.

They had to get uncomfortable and do things outside of their ‘norm’. This challenged them mentally and emotionally but for each dare they completed their confidence grew - whether that was confidence in each other, their love or, what I consider the most important, themselves.

Do you dare?

It would have been easy for Dash or Lily to not rise to the challenges set but I think it is hugely important to push ourselves and to try new things. Kolb’s 1984 Experiential Learning Cycle Model says we need to have an experience then reflect on this to be able to learn and then plan what we will do with this learning next through applying and trying some more.

But the thing is we need to have the experience first, whether that is something completely new, or to experience something in a different way, to be able to reflect on it, to assimilate the new ideas, perspective and experience to determine if this is something we like, don’t like, want to try again and then take this information into a plan for the future by testing our new information in future experiences.

Dash and Lily effectively create this experiential learning space by daring each other to have new experiences, then reflecting on this through writing and reporting back to each other in the notebook, which leads to them seeing and experiencing their world differently, and wanting to change and experience more different things as a result. 

I dare you…

As we approach the time of year where it is customary to set ourselves goals (or, as some might call them, New Year resolutions), I challenge you to set yourself some dares for 2021. Maybe it is a dare a month, or a week, or just one thing that you want to do or try or experience at some point in the next year. Push yourself and accept it will feel uncomfortable to begin with, accept you may or may not enjoy it, but also accept and embrace that you will learn something by having the experience - whether it is a new skill, or a new hobby, or something about yourself, or something to avoid after this first experience, or something that may become a large part of your future, or just that you can do more than you thought you could do and have proven this to yourself!

Be brave, be bold, be daring, be like Dash and Lily!