The Church’s formal rule for fasting on the first three days of Lent are perhaps the strictest of the year: no food from Monday until Wednesday evening, or dry bread and water after the sun sets on Monday and Tuesday for the weak and elderly.
While the strict observance of that rule is kept only by some monastics (and something we should not be attempting without a blessing), it points to something that we actually can attempt: We can all try to make a good beginning, an effort to enter Lent very consciously, and even a little more strictly for a few days. If we start well, it creates a momentum that carries us much further and more firmly than a “soft start.” Most should not go beyond the common fasting rule at the start, but all of us can begin well.