It is the core connotation of the concept of ecological well-being performance to maximize human well-being with minimum natural consumption and promote sustainable well-being. This study constructed a model of ecological well-being performance and decomposed ecological well-being performance into two driving effects, namely, the well-being effect of economic growth and the ecological efficiency of economic growth. The well-being effect of economic growth and the ecological efficiency of economic growth, which affect the change of ecological well-being performance in 31 provinces of China’s mainland, were calculated and analyzed by using the decoupling index (DI) and the DEA-ML index models respectively. The results show that: (1) From 2006 to 2016, the level of human development in China had been greatly improved, showing the characteristics of leading by Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai Municipalities and expanding from east to west. (2) From 2006 to 2016, the growth rate of human development level in China was significantly slower than that of per capita ecological footprint. China’s ecological well-being performance showed a downward trend as a whole. (3) China’s human well-being growth was relatively decoupled from economic growth. Human well-being growth slower than economic growth. China’s 31 provinces are divided into two categories: medium well-being growth and low well-being growth, 11 of which are Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Hainan, Guizhou, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Yunnan belong to the medium well-being growth, while the other 20 belong to the low well-being growth. (4) From 2006 to 2016, China’s traditional total factor productivity and green total factor productivity improved to varying degrees, but green total factor productivity had always been lower than traditional total factor productivity. It shows that the cost of resources and environment paid by economic growth affects the quality of China’s economic growth. (5) On the whole, the performance improvement of ecological well-being in China was driven by the well-being effect of economic growth and the ecological efficiency of economic growth, based on the decomposition of driving effect and the change of ecological well-being performance of 31 provinces in China can be divided into five types: economic-led improvement type, well-being driven improvement type, well-being lagged decline type, economic lagged decline type, and overall decline type. This paper deepens the understanding of the driving effect of the change of ecological well-being performance, and provides reference for different provinces in China to adopt different strategies to improve ecological well-being performance.