The modeling and analysis of lifetime data is critical in many areas, including actuarial science, management, engineering, medicin, physics, biology, hydrology, and computer science. Classical probability distributions have been used to manage data sets of varied sizes. However, considerable issues occur when real-world data does not fit into any of the classical or conventional probability models. Consequently, there arises a crucial requirement to enhance the flexibility of existing probability models by including the blending of two distributions or introducing additional parameters. This work introduces a ZLindley distribution with a single parameter. Both symmetric and left-skewed data can utilize the proposed model. We generate statistical features such as the mode, moments, quantile function, and moment-generating function to accurately represent the usefulness of the suggested distribution. We compute the parameter using the maximum likelihood estimation approach. A thorough simulation exercise evaluates the goodness-of-fit performance. We demonstrate the applicability and flexibility of the new recommended distribution by using a real dataset.