I wouldn't call Linux Mint "lightweight," when especially with the Cinnamon desktop it is every bit as full-featured as Windows 10 or 11 and can use just as many resources. Perhaps with the Xfce desktop it might seem a bit lighter. BTW Mint is based on Ubuntu + can use all of the Ubuntu packages.
Lightweight is something like the 300MB Puppy Linux which loads entirely into RAM on boot so the Live CD or USB is just as fast as when installed to disk. You can get it in Ubuntu, Slackware or Debian versions even for Raspberry Pi.
However I agree with punkncat in that a more friendly and intuitive distro like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Linux Lite (all Ubuntu based) would probably be a better compromise for someone coming from Windows, especially since your laptop actually runs Windows 10 so it doesn't have to be that light. ProtonVPN's Linux App runs on all of these, you just double-click the package to install it.
All it takes is a bit of time to try them all, so see what you like. You might even find Mint with Cinnamon to run adequately fast once installed to disk