The vast majority of cultivators had a preternatural form of instinct towards omens, dangers, and opportunities. Their perception of dangers was borderline precognitive, capable of sensing the looming arrival of calamity, death, destruction, and failure. This instinct of theirs worked as a double-edged blade, both assisting them in surviving spontaneous lethal situations and simultaneously instilling shaky confidence when challenging the path of cultivation.
A living example of this was none other than Pavilion Master Shang Liu who had been stuck in the Ascended Saint Phase of the Mystic Ascendant Realm for over 170,000 years, and that was largely because any resolve and strength that he managed to gather would collapse by the sensation of impending and catastrophic failure.