Human identity is first a question for philosophical anthropology. What does it mean to be human? What is the nature of human identity? What is the nature of individual human identity? What does it mean to be a social animal, especially a human social animal? What does it mean to be an intellectual animal? A moral animal? What is personhood? And so on.

You will discover that there are different aspects to what and whom a person is. How we act is a matter of volition and thus choice motivated by reasoning. Our actions are expressions of the powers we possess, that is, exercised potentials that belong to us. Thus, our actions are the expression of our moral agency; I choose to exercise certain potentials for certain reasons. The reasons we do things have moral import - they are part of the act as two apparently similar acts are different if the motives are different, making our motives partly constitutive of the moral character of an act. The exercise of our potential per se likewise has moral import - it is the motive made manifest in act.

Each act is a step in some direction. There is an expression that each decision moves us either toward heaven or toward hell. A good act is both good in motivation and in the motivated act. A good act actualizes and develops the human person acting toward a fruition and fullness of humanity-in-potency. A bad act acts against such fruition, corrupting the person through ill motive and damaging acts, or squandering potential when there is a moral possibility of exercise.

So, from a moral perspective, we can say that we are our decided acts. The acts are not just ticked off boxes on a list, but actualizations of the person. There are higher actualizations and lower actualizations.

In that sense, to speak of actions and intentions as if they were distinct is a false dichotomy. You can speak of reasoning and motives as the "inner" aspect and the manifested act as the "outer" aspect, if you want. But they constitute a single act as a matter of fact. You cannot speak intelligibly of one without reference to the other for the same reason you cannot speak of a cause or its effect without reference to the other. The nature of an act is both in motive and in execution.

And "fake it until you make it" is a misunderstanding. There is nothing fake involved. I have potentials. Initially, I do not have experience exercising them. I have little familiarity with them. So I try to exercise them. Typically, first attempts aren't very good, but I learn from the effects of my trial, and perhaps from the feedback of others, to "calibrate" my subsequent attempts. This is called practice. I repeat in order to discover and work out and strengthen the actualization of a potential. This is a not error in a moral sense. It is a kind of dialogue with nature.