The Voice winner Todd Tilghman has a lot of decisions to make about his future, but he isn’t in a rush. The father of eight is the lead pastor at a church in Mississippi, and now also has a blossoming music career, not to mention Blake Shelton’s advice and encouragement, which means his future could look a lot different than he once expected.

“I don’t know for sure how the trajectory of my life is going to go from here,” Todd admitted to People. “I don’t have any immediate plans to make any drastic changes tomorrow. I don’t know for sure the direction my life will go in. There’s a possibility that that money might pay the bills for a little while.”

Todd earned a four-chair turnaround during his blind audition, before admitting he had never really performed for people before that night. With his success on The Voice, much more has changed for him than just his notoriety.

“Inside me I feel a lot more confident,” Todd said. “I’ve gone from someone no one knew, and now I’ve got a No. 1 song and a No. 8 song on iTunes. And that doesn’t feel like my real life.”

Even heading into the finale on Tuesday night, Todd wasn’t at all convinced he would be crowned the winner.

“I was having to multitask,” he said. “I wanted to try to prepare my children, like, ‘Listen, we probably won’t win. Remember to smile and cheer for whichever person wins because all of these people are great.’ Then there’s also a part of your mind that thinks, ‘Hey, there’s a shot. You’re Top 3 now.’ I was excited at the possibility, but I also was trying to make sure that my younger kids were prepared for the moment when they announced someone else’s name and just that that’s a win for us still.”

Because the last few episodes of The Voice were filmed remotely, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Todd was able to be with his family and friends when he found out he won.

“We hung out with a handful of people that were here, and we ate cake,” Todd recalled. “We had a victory cake someone gave us just in case. I mean, we were going to eat it either way. When you were in Top 5 on The Voice, there really is no lose. You all win. So, we were going to eat it regardless, whatever place we came in.”

Whether Todd pursues music full-time or continues pastoring, whatever he decides will be with his wife and children in mind.

“I want to be successful in this, but not for myself,” Todd explained. “I want to be successful in this for my family, but I don’t want to sacrifice my family to successful for my family. There’s got to be a balance in there somewhere.”