There is a survive-alive-arrive-thrive concept by business consultant Alan Weiss in his book entitled Lifestorming: Creating Meaning and Achievement in Your Career and Life.
This concept really resonated with me. When Nyssa and I formed the Road to Thrive Agency, this was a key driver behind it.
Within his book, Alan Weiss describes four stages of life, survive alive, arrive, thrive.
Survive is the stage where you are doing anything for a dollar.
Alive is the stage where you are making a consistent living not necessarily enjoying the work.
Arrive is the stage where you are making a consistent living doing work you enjoy
Thrive is the stage where money is no longer a motivating factor. If you made no money at your thrive state you could keep living your dream lifestyle.
Another part of the concept is creating gates between each of the phases so that once you are in a phase there is no chance that you will go back to one of the prior stages.