Even if you believe that you have a knack for tackling the unexpected, expert problem-solving goes beyond finding solutions.

Problem-solving is a skill, and as is the case with any skill, people differ in their proficiency. Even if you believe that you have a tight hold on tackling the unexpected, there is always an opportunity to improve in one or more of the six aspects of the process described below. You see, expert problem-solving goes beyond finding a solution.

Define the problem

It’s essential that before anyone takes action, everyone involved agrees on the nature of the problem and its real cause. People with different types of expertise who are being affected by the issue differently and who have different priorities are going to perceive and experience a problem in dissimilar ways. The all-important first step must be to ensure that everyone understands the problem in the same way. If this doesn’t happen, you risk losing valuable time and money pursuing dead ends or “solutions” that are nothing more than temporary bandages.

Be fearless

Bringing a problem to the attention of others is your first chance to speak up, while helping to define it is perhaps the next best opportunity to offer your opinions. Encourage others to offer their insights and ideas, to say I’m not so sure about that or how about this, and to disagree. And while you want to be open to suggestions, if you are confident in yours, work to convince others with evidence that you are right.

Mistakes happen, and failure is okay

No matter how often you hear that it’s okay to fail, we rarely take it in. We worry about not getting it right, about being embarrassed, about letting others or ourselves down. But the honest, inescapable truth is that every failed attempt is one more piece of evidence of what won’t work that points you in another direction, telling you to try something else.

Trust the process

You must have the right mindset before putting forth any effort. Oftentimes, we get frustrated searching for a solution, not understanding that the frustration may be the very thing inhibiting our ability to find a resolution. If you don’t believe in yourself and the people around you to tackle a problem, then you are preventing yourself, others, and the company from growing. Have a little faith—no matter how large a problem you are facing, trust that creativity, intelligence, and determination will win out.

Remember to reflect

People who are exceptionally good at solving problems often have analytical minds and the ability to look at something in a variety of ways. But even if you don’t excel in these areas, you can always take the time to reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t and to capture that information for later use.

Take pride

It is so easy to get caught up in one problem, solve it, and move on to the next. We become accustomed to just moving through our days, not taking stock of what we’ve accomplished in the day or over the past week or month. Often it isn’t until an annual performance review that we stop to think about what we’ve learned and done.

It’s important to your feelings of accomplishment and motivation to remember what you’ve learned and done. And it’s critically important that you don’t diminish your progress because you think it is insignificant or not as good as someone else’s. The only yardstick you need to be concerned with is the one that measures who were were before and who you are now, with what you couldn’t do yesterday and what you can do today.

The takeaway

There are many approaches to solving a problem, but these six principles can be used regardless of the system you adopt. They will help ensure that you begin and end on the right foot, learning and appreciating everything along the way until you reach the answer you need.