Attorney and former corporate legal leader Shannon Kobylarczyk has launched her Personal Mental Health & Resilience Pledge, offering concrete commitments and tools for professionals facing mounting workplace stress. The initiative emerges as national data reveals severe mental health challenges in workplaces, with the American Psychological Association reporting 77% of employees experience work-related stress and nearly 3 in 5 workers report negative mental health impacts from work.
"I spent years taking care of everyone except myself," Kobylarczyk said. "Eventually, that catches up with you." Her pledge centers on practical daily behaviors promoting mental health awareness, boundary-setting, and sustainable performance in demanding careers. She emphasizes that resilience involves rebuilding rather than pretending everything is fine, applying governance principles of clarity and structure to personal wellness.
The seven commitments include taking daily screen-free breaks, scheduling weekly wellness activities, speaking openly about mental health, setting work hour boundaries, weekly stress check-ins, prioritizing sleep as leadership responsibility, and seeking early support. "Mental health doesn't wait its turn," Kobylarczyk noted. "You either address it early, or it demands your attention."
The timing is critical as burnout among working parents has doubled in recent years, and chronic stress contributes to heart disease, anxiety disorders, and reduced productivity. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences mental illness each year, with over 60% not receiving treatment. The World Health Organization estimates depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion annually in lost productivity at https://www.who.int.
Kobylarczyk's accompanying toolkit provides 10 free actions including taking phone-free walks, identifying stress triggers, setting work "hard stop" times, and replacing social media with reading. The 30-day progress tracker guides users through awareness, boundaries, communication, and sustainability phases. "Big systems change slowly," she observed, "but personal habits can change today."
While not prescribing a universal solution, the pledge represents an individual approach to a systemic problem, offering structured methods for professionals to address mental health proactively rather than reactively. The initiative highlights how personal accountability practices from corporate governance can translate to wellness strategies, potentially reducing the staggering economic and human costs of untreated workplace stress.
