Emily P. Freeman – The Next Right Thing: Book Review & Audio Summary

Book Info

• Book name: The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions
• Author: Emily P. Freeman
• Genre: Christian Living – Personal Growth, Self-help
• Published Year: 2019
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Language: English
• Awards: Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Audio Summary

Synopsis

You’re standing at a crossroads. Again. And your brain is doing that thing where it runs 47 simulations of every possible outcome until you’re paralyzed. Emily P. Freeman gets it. The Next Right Thing isn’t about making perfect decisions-it’s about making the next one. Drawing from her Christian faith and her own messy journey (including a grad school decision that haunted her for weeks), Freeman argues that we’re so obsessed with outcomes that we forget to actually live. Her solution? Stop trying to map your entire future. Just do the next right thing. It sounds almost too simple. And honestly? That’s kinda the point.

Key Takeaways

• The Big Idea: Decision-making isn’t about controlling outcomes-it’s about being present enough to take the next small step
• The Controversial Point: The book leans heavily into Christian spirituality, which will either resonate deeply or feel alienating depending on where you stand
• The Actionable Part: When overwhelmed, ask yourself: What’s the next right thing I can do RIGHT NOW? Not tomorrow. Not the whole plan. Just the next thing.
• The Hidden Gem: Freeman’s point about how Jesus told Jairus to make his daughter lunch after raising her from the dead-mundane action as sacred response-is actually kind of brilliant

My Summary

The 35,000 Daily Decisions That Are Slowly Killing You

So here’s a fun statistic to ruin your day: you make roughly 35,000 decisions every single day. Which socks. Which coffee. Whether to reply to that email now or let it fester in your inbox like emotional compost. Most of these are automatic, sure. But then there are the Big Ones-the decisions that wake you up at 3 AM, the ones that feel like they’ll define your entire existence.

Emily P. Freeman knows this particular brand of existential dread intimately. Around her 40th birthday, she wanted to go to grad school. Not for career reasons. Not because something was missing. She just… wanted to. And yet she couldn’t give herself permission to want something without a “legitimate” reason. (Sound familiar? Yeah, me too.)

The Writing: Warm Blanket or Wet Blanket?

Here’s where I gotta be honest with you. Freeman’s prose is gentle. Really gentle. Like, sitting-on-a-porch-with-tea-while-it-rains gentle. If you’re looking for someone to grab you by the shoulders and shake some sense into you, this ain’t it.

But-and this is a big but-that gentleness is intentional. Freeman writes like she’s sitting across from you, not lecturing at you. Her background shows; she’s been doing this for five books now, and the sentences flow easy. Sometimes too easy. There were moments where I wanted more grit, more friction. The transitions between ideas can feel a bit floaty, like she’s drifting from thought to thought on a cloud.

Some readers have called it “fluffy feel-good nonsense.” I wouldn’t go that far, but I get why the vagueness frustrates people who want concrete steps. This book is more compass than GPS.

The Faith Thing (Let’s Talk About It)

Look, you can’t review this book without addressing the elephant in the room: it’s deeply Christian. Freeman weaves scripture throughout, references Jesus like an old friend, and approaches decision-making as a spiritual practice. If you’re not into that, this book will probably feel like someone’s trying to convert you over coffee.

But if you ARE into that-or at least open to it-there’s something refreshing here. The example of Jesus telling Jairus to make his resurrected daughter lunch stuck with me. No grand sermon. No “here’s what this means for the rest of your life.” Just: make her lunch. That’s your next right thing.

It’s weirdly profound. Or profoundly weird. Depends on where you’re sitting.

Real Talk: Does This Actually Help?

Here’s my honest assessment after sitting with this book: it helped me in the way a deep breath helps. It didn’t solve my problems. It didn’t give me a framework I could apply like a formula. But it did something almost more valuable-it gave me permission to not have everything figured out.

The readers who love this book? They’re the ones drowning in analysis paralysis, the chronic overthinkers, the people who’ve been staring at a major life decision for so long they’ve forgotten what it feels like to just… move. For them, “do the next right thing” isn’t a cop-out. It’s a lifeline.

The readers who hate it? They want actionable steps. They want a system. And Freeman explicitly isn’t offering that. She’s offering a posture, a way of being. Which is either exactly what you need or completely useless depending on your personality type.

The Verdict

The Next Right Thing won’t revolutionize your decision-making process. It’s not trying to. What it WILL do is sit with you in your uncertainty and whisper, “You don’t have to figure it all out right now.” For some of us-the perfectionists, the planners, the people exhausted by our own brains-that whisper is worth more than a hundred productivity hacks.

Just know what you’re getting into. This is spiritual comfort food, not a tactical manual. And sometimes? That’s exactly the meal you need.