The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions

by Emily P. Freeman

doesn’t matter what the specific decision is. Unmade decisions hold power. They pull, they push, they interrupt where they aren’t wanted and poke us awake at night. They can turn us into strange versions of ourselves. Like toddlers at our feet right before dinner, they follow us around and refuse to leave us alone until we face them head-on and either pick them up or point them in the right direction.

you have a God who walks and talks with you, who moves in and through you, who sings over you. How he moves in you may be different from how he moves in me, but one thing is certain. He remains unchanged. As my friend and teacher James Bryan Smith so kindly reminds us, you are one in whom Christ delights and dwells, and you live in the strong and unshakable kingdom of God. The decision is rarely the point. The point is you becoming more fully yourself in the presence of God.

Becoming a soul minimalist does not mean that you should hold on to nothing but rather that nothing should have a hold on you.

Admitting those areas in your life where you are a beginner is an important part of your decision-making process, because otherwise you may find yourself making decisions in order to avoid looking dumb or feeling foolish, or to save face. These are terrible things to base your decisions on. Maybe today, your next right thing is to stay quiet when your instinct wants to speak out. It could mean asking a question rather than faking your way through. Maybe you are being invited to wait until you have more information, to move even if it feels like a risk, or to say those three words you don’t feel comfortable saying: “I don’t know.”

When it comes to hard decisions, I no longer wait two weeks to ask this question. I ask it at the first sign of hesitation. Am I being led by love or pushed by fear? The answer to that question isn’t always clear, but I continue to carry it with me into every difficult decision.

In essence, knowing what you want is valuable in all stages of the decision-making process—before, during, and after. The sad thing is many of us move through our entire lives not knowing what we want before, during, or after a decision. As a result, we live our lives as a shadow of our true selves, not fully knowing who we are and, in turn, who God is in us.

knowing what you want is a gift to the people you love. It means in those areas where you have a choice, you won’t waste your time playing a game you don’t really care to win. It means you will be thoughtful about your yes and your no; you won’t overcommit yourself or your family to things beyond your collective capacity to support. Every yes you say affects every person who lives in your house. Knowing what you want is an automatic filter to help you say yes to the things you’ve already predecided matter, and to let the rest fall gently away.

Just because things change doesn’t mean you chose wrong in the first place. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. Today, perhaps your next right thing is to slow down long enough to see what’s taking up space in your life, to stop looking around and to settle in and listen. If that feels hard, it could be that you’re spinning around, looking for the next hundred things rather than the next one thing.

Maybe you need a reminder to release your pursuit of what is productive, profitable, impressive, or expected and instead consider this: What is essential? It’s the kind of thing we tend to save for January, but maybe it’s a good question any time of year. Essentialism is not about how to get more things done, it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

be picky who you listen to. We’ll talk about this more in a later chapter, but if somebody’s words, plans, or advice make you want to hyperventilate, take a hard pass. Breathe. Remember who you are. Repeat. It could be this exhausting advice is appealing to your false self. That’s usually how it goes for me, anyway. The false self can never get enough. David Benner says, “Our calling is therefore the way of being that is both best for us and best for the world.”2 Be picky about who you listen to.

Psalm 46:10 is an invitation to be still and know he is God. There’s a reason why God invites us to be still first: the stillness makes way for the knowing. It creates space in the same way becoming a soul minimalist makes way for the naming of unnamed things. When I am constantly in motion, my body rehearses anxiety rather than practicing the unforced rhythms of grace. Ironically, in choosing to finally stop chasing something we don’t think we have, we may end up finding what was always there. Having an uncluttered soul isn’t a one-time declarative statement but an ongoing way of being. Sometimes I feel centered in the early morning only to lose it by breakfast. Rather than being a scattered person unable to do anything, I want to be a gathered person equipped to do her next right thing in love. The same way I moved between the beach and the coffee shop, I also travel between the past and the future, trying to avoid regret, working hard to predict outcomes, considering all the ways things could go wrong. I feel guilty about missing days with my kids in a summer that hasn’t happened yet. I lose sleep over a conversation that I might have to have with an acquaintance. I imagine how someone might perceive me, and then I defend myself in my mind against that pretend perception. I allow my emotions to walk into the future without my rational mind, like a gang of toddlers without a parent. I can’t possibly do the next right thing because I’ve traveled so far into the future tha...

So, where do we go from here? Well, the only place we can go, the only place accessible to us. We go to now. Here’s one simple thing I do to help me stay present to this day. And when I say it’s simple, I really mean it. First, take one thing on your mind that feels overwhelming, a thing that causes you to flit into the future and make imaginary plans or fret over potential worry. State what it is. Then turn it into a question and add today on the end. Recently I practiced this before my girls started high school. While I wasn’t exactly worried about it, it was something weighing on me in the back of my mind. I wondered if I was prepared, if they were prepared, if there were things I hadn’t thought of that we needed to do. When I thought of it looming in the future, it felt overwhelming. For this simple exercise, I said, “I’m thinking about my girls starting high school in the fall.” Then I turned it into a question and added the word today. “Are my girls starting high school in the fall today?” If the answer is no, you can set it aside. If the answer is yes, ask yourself, What is the next right thing I can do right now as it relates to this concern?

As John often says, “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.” As you do that, you may notice the way your body responds to a tone certain people have or the photos they always share. Instead of paying attention to their agenda, pay attention to how you’re paying attention to their agenda—hold it in your hand and consider if it’s causing you some anxiety in your life. If yes, you know what to do.

It is God’s love for us that he not only gives us his word but also lends us his ear. So it is his work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. . . . We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choose wisely. Kevin DeYoung, Crazy Busy

Oftentimes I think something could be a great opportunity, so I say yes out of a fear of missing out. I may also say yes because I want everyone to know I was invited. Looking back, though, it’s maybe about one in ten opportunities that turn out to be great. That’s not exact math, but when I consider my own inbox and my own conversations, that seems to be about right. The other nine “opportunities” turn out to be one of three things: a job, an obligation, or a glorified favor. We call these things opportunities because we think maybe they’ll get us something we want, but oftentimes, if we really look hard at them, it’s a myth. Again, I’m not saying you should never say yes to those things. We do jobs, we have obligations, and we offer people favors all the time. But call them what they are: a job, an obligation, or a favor. Don’t call them great opportunities.

If the person you are trying so hard not to disappoint will be displeased by a no, they’ll eventually be disappointed even if you say yes. Lysa TerKeurst, The Best Yes

Overwhelmed at the garden center? What a luxury! There are people with real problems in the world! Well, that’s true. What is also true is we can’t move through what we refuse to acknowledge. And usually, the small things are simply arrows pointing to some bigger things. Shame in the garden center is evidence of shame in other areas as well. If my knee-jerk reaction to a simple decision like picking out plants is shame and feeling overcome, then can you imagine what my knee-jerk reaction must be in areas of life that really matter and have consequence?

In the midst of a busy schedule, a load of laundry, a painful diagnosis, a confusing conversation, or prep for that upcoming trip, it’s easy to forget your center. It’s easy to forget who you are. Some of our self remains hidden beneath piles of daily activity we can see and shadows of shame we often can’t see. Perhaps today, your next right thing is to release something you no longer need so that you can move one step closer to becoming who you already are.

Leeana Tankersley, and in her book Breathing Room, she says this: Isn’t it amazing what we will do at our own expense? I’ve decided that even if I have to wear something with a stretch waistband the rest of my life, I’m not going to demean myself by wearing clothes that hurt me. . . . No more bad pants. One of the ways we punish ourselves for not being more or better or thinner or stronger is by trying to squeeze ourselves—force ourselves, even—into all kinds of ill-fitting relationships. With other people, with ourselves, with our pants.3

I know you laughed extra hard during that episode of The Office when Pam Beesly said she hated the idea that someone out there hates her, and that if Al-Qaeda got to know her she’s sure they wouldn’t hate her. This need to be liked doesn’t define me, but it does tempt me and it’s not as simple as just wanting to fit in. It’s more like wanting to know where I fit, which is, if you can believe it, super different from wanting to fit in. I don’t want to be like you, I want to be like me. The trouble comes when I’m not sure if being like me is good enough, acceptable, or approved of by you.

Don’t we all hope for connection but often choose protection instead? When we bring it back to discerning our next right thing today, especially if we have a decision to make, we may have a tendency to base that decision on comparison and protection rather than on a relational connection.

“What would it look like to trust Jesus, to be patient, to be loving, or to be content just for the next ten minutes?” That’s a next-right-thing mindset for your soul. Maybe you’ll listen before you speak. Maybe you’ll offer a smile, a nod, or a hand. Maybe you’ll simply be present with someone without an agenda. Could it be possible that the person you’re competing with most is some idealized version of yourself that you can never live up to? Would you be willing to set her free? How about just for the next ten minutes?

I forget or maybe never truly believe how often the best things that happen are, in fact, kind gifts that have nothing to do with me. My obsession with clarity and the quick fix blinds me to all the miraculous ways Jesus works in small surprises in the midst of the long haul—through people, through connection, through his body, the church.

We get into trouble when we pit two things against each other that could also coexist. You could be called to a particular job and be addicted to the validation. You could want to marry a certain man or woman and want love in unhealthy ways. You could thrive at a particular school and carry pride in the prestige it offers. It doesn’t mean you chose wrong if (when) you discover your motives are wonky. What it does mean is there is still much to learn, you are desperately in need of Jesus, and here is where you can walk together with him toward health and wholeness.