It should certainly be the first step. I've started like this, continuously less meat, your gut-biome slowly adjusts. I'm still not vegan/vegetarian but basically eat no meat anymore (mostly leftovers of others). A good part of it is that I just don't really like meat anymore (tastes kind of rotten?).

I recommend going this route, as I think it's easier to get into a vegan diet.

That said I think we (as a global society) should strive towards eating only vegan long-term. We got the food science and it just feels wrong (moral, inefficiency, health) and isn't sustainable.