The Next Right Thing

I absolutely loved Emily Freeman’s inspirational, life-giving book, The Next Right Thing! It is so much more than a book about decision-making. Emily’s skilled writing style infuses the layers of her powerful message as it beautifully unfolds upon your soul. Emily Freeman is known for creating space for your soul to breathe with her ministry, writing, and podcast, and she does this with excellence! I think she is a wonderful writer. The Next Right Thing is insightful, thought-provoking, creative, inspirational, powerful, and concise. Emily Freeman captures the reader’s attention and seamlessly creates the perfect mix of story, message, and action steps with her lyrical words and beautifully unique style of writing. The Next Right Thing walks the reader through the author’s stories, soulful advice and practical instruction and tools, prayers, and action steps to lead the reader to their next right thing. Emily Freeman shares her wisdom, humor, faith, experiences, humanness, vulnerabilities, and truths in easy to follow but power-packed chapters. She walks with you along an explorational journey of discovery and curiosity as she equips the reader with fresh and effective ways to face and conquer the challenges of decision-making. The author highlights our relationship with God and ourselves as she unearths the layers of decision-making and the impacts they have upon our identities; mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Emily Freeman’s writing voice is that of a friend, one of honest generosity, compassion, faith-filled wisdom, and authenticity. Her message feels personalized and also universal in theme. This is one of those books that you’ll be highlighting page after page. I have applied several of the invaluable tools from The Next Right Thing and found them to be helpful in my decision-making processes. I love this quote by Emily Freeman in The Next Right Thing; “When the answers aren’t clear, what we want more than anything is peace, clarity, and a nudge in the right direction. The problem is we are often looking for direction in all the wrong places. Often the clues to our next decision remain within us, unheard and undiscovered.” I will be rereading The Next Right Thing again and again and telling everyone it’s a must-read! I loved it!!

I received an advanced reader copy of this book through Netgalley. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is my favorite book by Emily P. Freeman, and I have read them all! She perfectly balances sharing anecdotes about her life while also weighing in with deep, thoughtful questions and observations that make every topic applicable to my own life or another reader's life. Somehow you get to know her but also don't feel like she's written a book all about herself and her way of doing things. I am facing a variety of challenging decisions at the moment, some large and some small, but I feel like this book could not have come at a better time. It is faith-based, but I would say anyone who is open to the concept of God or the Universe would still benefit from reading. I have been a Christian for a decade, but her observations about God revealed even more to me about His character, and I like Him even more from reading. Emily feels like a friend that would sit on my bed drinking coffee while I organize my closet and talk through all the big life decisions weighing on me. Her ideas are new and yet somehow so obvious. She supplements her own thoughts with beautiful quotes and thoughts from other writers, and my "to read" list has doubled in size just by jotting down all the references she makes. If you're considering reading, consider listening to one of the first few episodes of the podcast as a starting point. Despite listening to every episode, the book has a lot of additional NEW content, not just transcripts of what she has already shared on the podcast. Perfect gift for yourself or for anyone in your life feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or walking through a new season. I am buying a few copies for the college grads on my list this spring!

These days, I consider Emily P. Freeman one of my people. Even though I've only met her once, her work has been ushering me along my whole adult life into grace, creativity, and the ordinary Tuesday. This book is no different. It was an invitation to walk beside into a more soul-aware way of living, in the midst of everyday decisions and not-so-everyday decisions. The Next Right Thing is strewn with grace, peace, soul-care, small-moment attentiveness, helpful advice, true-hearted stories, and sound wisdom, while being completely rooted in faith in the one who made us. I was so grateful for the way she reassures us over and over again of the steadfastness of God in the midst of our decision making processes and how no matter how it might seem, God "does not pull rugs out from under you" and "he does not drop the other shoe" (p47). Sometimes it is hard to remember or to know exactly what faith feels like in the midst of hard times, but hearing these words is so freeing. I also really appreciated how Emily gently guides us back to knowing what we can control and what we can't. Multiple times I found myself underlining sentences like these, because they are so just so helpful to remember: ->"We can't prevent storms from coming, but we can decide not to invent our own." p79 -> "We can start down that road of doubt and questioning if we want to. But just because the doubts show up doesn't mean you have to let them sit down." p138 Each chapter is short and ends with a short prayer and a simple practice for decision making. I want to reread this book soon, a little more slowly this time, just to absorb. It is equally practical and faith-growing. It was helpful, hopeful, Jesus-ful, and practical

This is a beautifully written book. If you struggle with decision making, this is a must read. Every chapter concludes with a prayer and practice. I related to so many of the stories the author shared throughout the book as a person who is often faced with decision fatigue. Ultimately, my biggest takeaway was this: don’t let decision making be a big deal. Make a decision and move forward the best way you know how in the moment. Then continue to do that over and over again. Thinking of decision making in this way simplified it for me and–as she so eloquently states–”creates room for [my] soul to breathe.”

This book, born out of Emily P Freeman’s beautiful podcast also called The Next Right Thing, is full of wisdom and grace to carry us through our decision-heavy lives. The book is broken up into twenty-four manageable chapters covering a range of topics such as, how to discern what you want more, how to stay present while making a decision, and (my personal favorite) a gentle reminder to “stop collecting gurus” (ie don’t bog your decision making process down with too many outside voices and opinions). I found myself nodding my head when Emily talked about flight anxiety, smiling as she described a way of looking at the world with wonder, and wiping away tears as she described a sunset. The content of this book is so practical, encouraging simple mind shifts rather than calling us to be superheros. Emily is relatable and sweet, offering just the right voice to our chaotic and busy lives. As a young married woman fresh out of college, this book was extremely helpful. Emily’s words help to quiet the raging storm in my head and offer me hope for the times I feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by all the decisions ahead of me. I plan to read it again, devotional style, really digging into the sections at the end of each chapter that encourage the reader into a gentle practice (ie pay attention, notice the silence, etc.) Favorite quote: “We are conditioned to believe the only reason we should do things is if we know why, where we are headed, and for what purpose. No wonder we have trouble making decisions. IF we don’t have clear answers or sure things, then taking a big step feels like a risk at best and a wasteful mistake at worst.” **I received an advanced reader copy on Netgalley.

If you’ve been around me for more than 5 minutes, I’ve probably pointed you to Emily P. Freeman and her podcast The Next Right Thing. Great news! She’s written a book by the same title, and it’s amazing! Emily loves the Lord, and He's blessed her with with great wisdom, especially when it comes to teaching us how to make decisions. (Decision fatigue, anyone?!?) Emily is also stinkin' funny, so there's that too! The book by itself will be a TRUE help. Emily challenges me in every chapter to slow my roll and give my soul time to breathe just a bit. That alone is a huge help in resting and getting enough clarity to make decisions that need to be made. She goes beyond that though and gives specific practices that enhance my life as a whole, not just my decision making process. I move through my day better. I love my family better. I love my friend Jesus better. And her prayers! Y'all. I've had to pull over on the side of the road to pull myself together after hearing Emily pray for us! I'm not even joking. This woman is a mighty pray-er, and one of my favorite facets of this book is that she closes each chapter in a prayer. I read them and then I PRAY them. And it's a powerful thing. I'm honored and grateful to be on the launch team for this book. I mean, I mention Emily all the time anyway! Because I'm on the launch team I received a free advance copy of The Next Right Thing, but I assure you, these are my honest thoughts and opinions. I don't buy a lot of books, but I've already purchased one copy, and I know I'll purchase several more to share with friends and family. You'll want to do the same!

I have a confession to make. I’ve never reviewed a book before I’ve finished it. And even though I’ve only completed 64%, without a shadow of a doubt, I can 100% recommend "The Next Right Thing" by Emily P. Freeman. I have read three of Emily’s four books and I have been listening to her podcast, “The Next Right Thing” for over a year now. I enjoy Emily’s soothing voice but I tend to learn best via the written word, so when I heard that she was writing the book, I preordered it immediately. Amazon didn’t even have the cover art to display! I have early access to the book in digital format via Netgalley; the book releases on April 2. But unlike most books that I read, I am not flying through it. This book is meant to be savored. This book is meant to be read again and again. This book is meant to be the hand of God guiding you slowly and peacefully through making decisions in this messy, yet magnificent life. Yes, that is a direct reference to another favorite of mine, "This Messy Magnificent Life" by Geneen Roth. Geneen details how important it is to choose to live life from a full heart and to make decisions from that space. Emily tells you how to do that. I have always struggled with making decisions. For over 35 years, I have driven my family crazy with my anxiety and worry – so much so that they have kept things from me until I absolutely had to know due to concern about my reaction. Because I want to do everything right, my fear of doing something wrong has caused me to do the wrong thing or be terrified to act at all. Over the past 13 years, I’ve learned how to combat my need for perfection and to make decisions from my heart. The Next Right Thing is the book I needed 13 years ago. Emily has put everything I’ve been learning about whole-hearted decision-making into one place. The book is as light in tone as it is heavy with content, and the irony is not lost on me that as Emily is discussing putting down our phone to hear the silence, I’m reading on the Kindle App on my phone. I cannot wait for this book to be available in hard copy. I like to highlight and write in margins when I come to good points and The Next Right Thing has so many good points! I can’t finish reading because I keep having to hold her nuggets of wisdom in my mind, turning them over and over. She ends every chapter with a prayer and a practice. A favorite is part of one below. "May we not demand a spectacle, a miracle, or a sign. May we simply, quietly, be still and know." "The Next Right Thing" will help you know.

Emily P. Freeman is one of the co-founders for a writing group I’m in called Hope*Writers. I enjoy her personable teaching style and I love her podcast, The Next Right Thing. Emily’s book reflects her mission to help others create space for their soul to breathe. I get anxious when I don’t know what to do. I fret between two equally good choices or when there is no clear right or wrong decision. This book offers practical ways to ease the pressure in decision-making in order to discern what your next right thing is. “We make better decisions by making decisions, not be thinking about making decisions.” We can lighten the weight of decision-making by learning to think about what we really want and what we are basing our decisions on. “Fear works both ways, keeping you from doing things you might want to do and convincing you that you have to do things you don’t want to do.” Decisions aren’t always black and white. Enter to win a free copy of this beautiful book below! Sometimes it takes time to gain clarity. Clarity often comes as we move forward in slow measured steps and listen to the still small voice of the Lord leading us. “Here’s the truth: you can only make decisions based on what you know at the time.” I also loved the chapter titled, Don’t Give Your Critic Words. Since I struggle with people-pleasing this chapter helped me discern what kind of critic to ignore. Then when he/she says words, we have to decide what to believe. “The voice of the critic forces us to face our biggest fears and, in turn, listen hard for the voice of God. I can worry or I can work. I can get stuck or I can move on. I can get defensive or I can be free.” This is a beautiful hard-bound book with lots of white space, clean colors, and fresh looking font. Each chapter ends with a prayer and a practice to help you gain peace about the decisions you’ve already made and give you direction for the decisions you’re unsure about. I received a free copy of this book from Revell Publishing in exchange for my honest review.