There is another option that will work better if your system expands, and also corresponds to the third normal form . Create an additional categories table, in which we make the id and cat_name fields. In this table we put all possible categories. In the table myTable, instead of the category field, we make the cat_id field, into which the number of the required category is entered. After this, we make a connection from the categories.id field in the one-to-many field of myTable.cat_id. The link will ensure that records with a non-existent category cannot be added to the myTable table.
Now about the selection with sorting. I may be mistaken with the features of MySql syntax, but the essence is this:
SELECT myTable.id, categories.cat_name FROM myTable JOIN categories ON myTable.cat_id=categories.id ORDER BY myTable.cat_id
In this case, the categories are sorted in the order in which they are entered into the categories table.